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The Significance of the Market Portfolio

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Author Info
Stefano Athanasoulis
Robert J. Shiller

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Abstract

The market portfolio is in one sense the least important portfolio to provide to investors. In an J-agent one-period stochastic endowment economy, where preferences are quadratic, a social-welfare-minded contract designer would never create a contract that would allow trading the market portfolio. Even the complete set of contracts, all J 1 of them, which achieve a first best solution, never span the market portfolio. These conclusions rely on the assumption that the contract designer has perfect information about agents' utilities. We also show that as the contract designer's information about agents' utilities becomes more imperfect, the optimal contracts approach contracts that weight individual endowments in proportion to elements of eigenvectors of the variance matrix of endowments. Then, if there is a strong enough market component to endowments, a portfolio approximating the market portfolio may be the most important portfolio.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Technical Working Papers with number 0209.

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Date of creation: Feb 1997
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberte:0209

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General
G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Demange, G. & Laroque, G., 1995. "Efficiency and Options on the Market Index," DELTA Working Papers 95-17, DELTA (Ecole normale supérieure).
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  2. Geanakoplos, John, 1990. "An introduction to general equilibrium with incomplete asset markets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 1-38. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Duffie Darrell & Rahi Rohit, 1995. "Financial Market Innovation and Security Design: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-42, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Demange Gabrielle & Laroque Guy, 1995. "Optimality of Incomplete Markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 218-232, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Cass, David & Chichilnisky, Graciela & Wu, Ho-Mou, 1996. "Individual Risk and Mutual Insurance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 333-41, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Magill, Michael & Shafer, Wayne, 1991. "Incomplete markets," Handbook of Mathematical Economics, in: W. Hildenbrand & H. Sonnenschein (ed.), Handbook of Mathematical Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 30, pages 1523-1614 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Acharya, Viral V & Bisin, Alberto, 2003. "Optimal Financial Market Integration and Security Design," CEPR Discussion Papers 3852, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Robert J. Shiller, 1998. "Social Security and Institutions for Intergenerational, Intragenerational and International Risk Sharing," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1185, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Robert J. Shiller, 1997. "Expanding the Scope of Individual Risk Management: Moral Hazard and Other Behavioral Considerations," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1145, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
  4. Acharya, Viral V & Bisin, Alberto, 2002. "Entrepreneurial Incentives in Stock Market Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 3474, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Stefano G. Athanasoulis & Robert J. Shiller, 1999. "World Income Components: Measuring and Exploiting Risk-Sharing Opportunities," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1239, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Robert J. Shiller & Stefano G. Athanasoulis, 1997. "World Income Components: Measuring and Exploiting International Risk Sharing Opportunities," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1097, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Miklós Koren, 2003. "Financial Globalization, Portfolio Diversification, and the Pattern of International Trade," IMF Working Papers 03/233, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  8. Mark J. Kamstra & Robert J. Shiller, 2009. "The Case for Trills: Giving the People and Their Pension Funds a Stake in the Wealth of the Nation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1717, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
  9. Laurent Calvet & Martin Gonzalez-Eiras & Paolo Sodini, 2001. "Financial Innovation, Market Participation and Asset Prices," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1928, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Maria Giduskova & Borja Larrain, 2006. "International risk-taking, volatility, and consumption growth," Communities and Banking, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. [Downloadable!]
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