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Optimal Buffer Stocks and Precautionary Savings with Disappointment Aversion

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  • Joshua Aizenman

Abstract

Developing countries use various risk reduction schemes, ranging from active management of buffer stocks and international reserves to commodity stabilization funds. The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the design of these schemes in a generalized expected utility maximization model where agents are disappointment averse. We derive first the generalized risk premium, showing that disappointment aversion increases the conventional risk premium by a term proportional to the standard deviation times the degree of disappointment aversion. Next, we show that disappointment aversion modifies the characteristics of precautionary saving. The concavity of the marginal utility continues to determine precautionary saving, but its effect is of a second order magnitude (proportional to the variance) compared to the first order effect (proportional to the standard deviation) induced by disappointment aversion. Hence, higher volatility increases the precautionary saving of a disappointment averse agent. This result applies even if the income process approaches a random walk. Finally, we reexamine the optimal size of buffer stocks, showing that disappointment aversion increases its size by a first order magnitude. A buffer stock that is rather small when agents are maximizing the conventional expected utility is rather large when agents are disappointment averse.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5361.

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Date of creation: Nov 1995
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5361

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  1. Epstein, Larry G & Zin, Stanley E, 1991. "Substitution, Risk Aversion, and the Temporal Behavior of Consumption and Asset Returns: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 263-86, April.
  2. Gul, Faruk, 1991. "A Theory of Disappointment Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 667-86, May.
  3. Epstein, Larry G & Wang, Tan, 1994. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing Under Knightian Uncertainty," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 283-322, March.
  4. Sandmo, Agnar, 1970. "The Effect of Uncertainty on Saving Decisions," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 353-60, July.
  5. Gilboa, Itzhak, 1987. "Expected utility with purely subjective non-additive probabilities," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 65-88, February.
  6. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-87, May.
  7. Joshua Aizenman, 1995. "Investment in New Activities and the Welfare Cost of Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 5041, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Newbery, David M, 1989. "The Theory of Food Price Stabilisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(398), pages 1065-82, December.
  9. Uzi Segal & Avia Spivak, 1988. "First Order Versus Second Order Risk Aversion," UCLA Economics Working Papers 540, UCLA Department of Economics.
  10. Harless, David W & Camerer, Colin F, 1994. "The Predictive Utility of Generalized Expected Utility Theories," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1251-89, November.
  11. Kreps, David M & Porteus, Evan L, 1978. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 185-200, January.
  12. Arrau, Patricio & Claessens, Stijn, 1992. "Commodity stabilization funds," Policy Research Working Paper Series 835, The World Bank.
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Cited by:
  1. Joshua Aizenman & Nancy Marion, 2002. "The High Demand for International Reserves in the Far East: What's Going On?," NBER Working Papers 9266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Joshua Aizenman & Nancy Marion, 2002. "The high demand for international reserves in the Far East: what's going on?," Pacific Basin Working Paper Series 02-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
  3. Joshua Aizenman, 1999. "International Portfolio Diversification with Generalized Expected Utility Preferences," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 32(4), pages 995-1008, August.

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