Advanced Search

Do Asset-Demand Functions Optimize over the Mean and Variance of Real Returns? A Six-Currency Test

Contents:

Author Info

  • Jeffrey A. Frankel
  • Charles Engel

Abstract

International asset demands are functions of expected returns.Optimal portfolio theory tells us that the coefficients in this relationship depend on the variance-covariance matrix of real returns.But previous estimates of the optimal portfolio (1) assume expected returns constant and (2) are not set up to test the hypothesis of mean-variance optimization. We use maximum likelihood estimation to impose a constraint between the coefficients and the error variance-covariance matrix. For a portfolio of six currencies, we are able statistically to reject the constraint. Evidently investors are either not sophisticated enough to maximize a function of the mean and variance of end-of-period wealth, or else are too sophisticated to do so.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1051.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 1051.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: Mar 1985
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1051

Note: ITI IFM
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

References

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. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-87, September.
  2. Fama, Eugene F & Farber, Andre, 1979. "Money, Bonds, and Foreign Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 639-49, September.
  3. Cornell, W Bradford & Dietrich, J Kimball, 1978. "The Efficiency of the Market for Foreign Exchange under Floating Exchange Rates," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(1), pages 111-20, February.
  4. E.K. Berndt & B.H. Hall & R.E. Hall, 1974. "Estimation and Inference in Nonlinear Structural Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 4, pages 103-116 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Pentti J.K. Kouri & Jorge B. de Macedo, 1978. "Exchange Rates and the International Adjustment Process," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 488, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
  6. Stulz, ReneM., 1981. "A model of international asset pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 383-406, December.
  7. Frenkel, Jacob A. & Razin, Assaf, 1980. "Stochastic prices and tests of efficiency of foreign exchange markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 165-170.
  8. Grauer, Frederick L. A. & Litzenberger, Robert H. & Stehle, Richard E., 1976. "Sharing rules and equilibrium in an international capital market under uncertainty," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 233-256, June.
  9. Garman, Mark B. & Kohlhagen, Steven W., 1980. "Inflation and Foreign Exchange Rates Under Production and Monetary Uncertainty," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(04), pages 949-967, November.
  10. Paul R. Krugman, 1981. "Consumption Preferences, Asset Demands, and Distribution Effects in International Financial Markets," NBER Working Papers 0651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Lars Peter Hansen & Robert J. Hodrick, 1983. "Risk Averse Speculation in the Forward Foreign Exchange Market: An Econometric Analysis of Linear Models," NBER Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and International Macroeconomics, pages 113-152 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Rudiger Dornbusch, 1980. "Exchange Rate Economics: Where Do We Stand?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 11(1, Tenth ), pages 143-206.
  13. Parkin, M, 1970. "Discount House Portfolio and Debt Selection," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 469-97, October.
  14. Michael P. Dooley & Peter Isard, 1979. "The portfolio-balance model of exchange rates," International Finance Discussion Papers 141, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  15. Mussa, Michael, 1979. "Empirical regularities in the behavior of exchange rates and theories of the foreign exchange market," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 9-57, January.
  16. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 1979. "The diversifiability of exchange risk," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 379-393, August.
  17. Engel, Charles M., 1984. "Testing for the absence of expected real profits from forward market speculation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 299-308, 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.
Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1051

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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