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Is there Evidence of Pessimism and Doubt in Subjective Distributions? A Comment on Abel

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Author Info
Giordani, Paolo () (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics)
Söderlind, Paul () (Dept. of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics)

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Abstract

Abel (2002) shows that pessimism and doubt in the subjective distribution of the growth rate of consumption reduce the riskfree rate puzzle and the equity premium puzzle. We quantify the amount of pessimism and doubt in survey data on US consumption and income. Individual forecasters are in fact pessimistic, but show marked overconfidence rather than doubt. Whether this implies that overconfidence should be built into Abel's model depends on how the empirically heterogeneous subjective distributions are mapped into the distribution of a fictitious representative agent. We work out the form of this mapping in an Arrow-Debreu economy and show that the equity premium increases with the dispersion of beliefs. We then estimate this aggregate distribution and find little evidence of either overconfidence or doubt.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Stockholm School of Economics in its series Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance with number 519.

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Length: 14 pages
Date of creation: 14 Dec 2002
Date of revision: 15 Aug 2003
Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0519

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Related research
Keywords: equity premium riskfree rate aggregation of beliefs Survey of Professional Forecasters Livingston Survey

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C42 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Survey Methods
E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Detemple Jerome & Murthy Shashidhar, 1994. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 294-320, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Richard H. Thaler, 2000. "From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 133-141, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Matthew Rabin, 1998. "Psychology and Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 11-46, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, 08. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Giordani, Paolo & Soderlind, Paul, 2003. "Inflation forecast uncertainty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(6), pages 1037-1059, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Benartzi, Shlomo & Thaler, Richard H, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Varian, Hal R, 1985. " Divergence of Opinion in Complete Markets: A Note," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 309-17, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Christoffersen, Peter F, 1998. "Evaluating Interval Forecasts," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 841-62, November.
  9. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-45, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Louis K. C. Chan & Jason Karceski & Josef Lakonishok, 2003. "The Level and Persistence of Growth Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 643-684, 04. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Abel, Andrew B., 2002. "An exploration of the effects of pessimism and doubt on asset returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(7-8), pages 1075-1092, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang & Tano Santos, 2001. "Prospect Theory And Asset Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(1), pages 1-53, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Rubinstein, Mark, 1974. "An aggregation theorem for securities markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 225-244, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Joseph Engelberg & Charles F. Manski & Jared Williams, 2006. "Comparing the Point Predictions and Subjective Probability Distributions of Professional Forecasters," NBER Working Papers 11978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Olivier Armantier & Nicolas Treich, 2006. "Overbidding in Independant Private-Values Auctions and Misperception of Probabilities," CIRANO Working Papers 2006s-15, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
  3. Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp, 2006. "Heterogeneous Beliefs and Asset Pricing in Discrete Time: An Analysis of Pessimism and Doubt," Post-Print halshs-00176500_v1, HAL. [Downloadable!]
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  4. repec:hal:papers:halshs-00176611_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
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