IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedrwp/05-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A quantitative study of the role of wealth inequality on asset prices

Author

Listed:
  • Juan Carlos Hatchondo

Abstract

This paper studies the equilibrium properties of asset prices in a Lucas-tree model when agents display a concave coefficient of absolute risk tolerance. The latter introduces a role for wealth inequality, even under the presence of complete markets. The paper finds evidence suggesting that the role of wealth inequality on asset prices may be non-negligible. For the baseline calibration, the equity premium in the unequal economy is half a percentage point larger than the equity premium displayed by an egalitarian economy. The difference increases to one percentage point once we allow for the fact that agents tend to hold highly concentrated portfolios.

Suggested Citation

  • Juan Carlos Hatchondo, 2005. "A quantitative study of the role of wealth inequality on asset prices," Working Paper 05-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedrwp:05-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/working_papers/2005/wp_05-12.cfm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/working_papers/2005/pdf/wp05-12.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vincenzo Quadrini, 2000. "Entrepreneurship, Saving and Social Mobility," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(1), pages 1-40, January.
    2. Mankiw, N. Gregory & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1991. "The consumption of stockholders and nonstockholders," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 97-112, March.
    3. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    4. Christian Gollier, 2001. "Wealth Inequality and Asset Pricing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 181-203.
    5. Krusell, Per & Smith, Anthony A., 1997. "Income And Wealth Heterogeneity, Portfolio Choice, And Equilibrium Asset Returns," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 387-422, June.
    6. Ivković, Zoran & Sialm, Clemens & Weisbenner, Scott, 2008. "Portfolio Concentration and the Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 613-655, September.
    7. repec:cup:macdyn:v:1:y:1997:i:2:p:387-422 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 803-887, Elsevier.
    9. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    10. Heaton, John & Lucas, Deborah J, 1996. "Evaluating the Effects of Incomplete Markets on Risk Sharing and Asset Pricing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 443-487, June.
    11. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Walentin Karl, 2010. "Earnings Inequality and the Equity Premium," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-23, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Carlos Hatchondo, 2008. "A quantitative study of the role of wealth inequality on asset prices," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 94(Win), pages 73-96.
    2. Cochrane, John H., 2005. "Financial Markets and the Real Economy," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 1-101, July.
    3. Favilukis, Jack, 2013. "Inequality, stock market participation, and the equity premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 740-759.
    4. John Y. Campbell, 2003. "Two Puzzles of Asset Pricing and Their Implications for Investors," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 47(1), pages 48-74, March.
    5. Kazufumi Yamana, 2016. "Structural Household Finance," Discussion papers ron279, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan.
    6. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 803-887, Elsevier.
    7. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    8. George M. Constantinides, 2006. "Market Organization And The Prices Of Financial Assets," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 74(s1), pages 1-23, September.
    9. George M. Constantinides, 2002. "Rational Asset Prices," NBER Working Papers 8826, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Elena Márquez de la Cruz, 2005. "La elasticidad de sustitución intertemporal y el consumo duradero: un análisis para el caso español," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 29(3), pages 455-481, September.
    11. Kris Jacobs, 2001. "Estimating Nonseparable Preference Specifications for Asset Market Participants," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-12, CIRANO.
    12. Edmond, Chris & Weill, Pierre-Olivier, 2012. "Aggregate implications of micro asset market segmentation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 319-335.
    13. Zimper, Alexander, 2012. "Asset pricing in a Lucas fruit-tree economy with the best and worst in mind," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 610-628.
    14. Chabakauri, Georgy, 2010. "Asset pricing with heterogeneous investors and portfolio constraints," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43142, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Jacobs, Kris, 2000. "Estimating Nonseparable Preference Specifications for Asset Market Participants," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1472, Econometric Society.
    16. Kris Jacobs, 2002. "The Rate of Risk Aversion May Be Lower Than You Think," CIRANO Working Papers 2002s-08, CIRANO.
    17. Krusell, Per & Kuruscu, Burhanettin & Smith, Anthony Jr., 2002. "Time orientation and asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 107-135, January.
    18. Alon Brav & George M. Constantinides & Christopher C. Geczy, 2002. "Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Consumers and Limited Participation: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 793-824, August.
    19. Tsvetanka Karagyozova, 2007. "Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Agents, Incomplete Markets and Trading Constraints," Working papers 2007-46, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2008.
    20. Andrei Semenov, 2003. "High-Order Consumption Moments and Asset Pricing," Working Papers 2003_4, York University, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2005.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wealth; Asset pricing;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedrwp:05-12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Pascasio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbrius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.