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Herd behavior and aggregate fluctuations in financial markets

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Author Info
Rama Cont (Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management)
Jean-Philippe Bouchaud (Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management)
Abstract

We present a simple model of a stock market where a random communication structure between agents gives rise to a heavy tails in the distribution of stock price variations in the form of an exponentially truncated power-law, similar to distributions observed in recent empirical studies of high frequency market data. Our model provides a link between two well-known market phenomena: the heavy tails observed in the distribution of stock market returns on one hand and 'herding' behavior in financial markets on the other hand. In particular, our study suggests a relation between the excess kurtosis observed in asset returns, the market order flow and the tendency of market participants to imitate each other.

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Paper provided by Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management in its series Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive with number 500028.

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Date of creation: Dec 1997
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Publication status: Published in Journal of Macroeconomic Dynamics, 4 (2), 170 (2000)
Handle: RePEc:sfi:sfiwpa:500028

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G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

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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.:
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    Other versions:
  2. Clark, Peter K, 1973. "A Subordinated Stochastic Process Model with Finite Variance for Speculative Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(1), pages 135-55, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Muller, Ulrich A. & Dacorogna, Michel M. & Olsen, Richard B. & Pictet, Olivier V. & Schwarz, Matthias & Morgenegg, Claude, 1990. "Statistical study of foreign exchange rates, empirical evidence of a price change scaling law, and intraday analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 1189-1208, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Rama Cont & Marc Potters & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 1997. "Scaling in stock market data: stable laws and beyond," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 9705087, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management. [Downloadable!]
  8. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan & Wermers, Russ, 1995. "Momentum Investment Strategies, Portfolio Performance, and Herding: A Study of Mutual Fund Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1088-1105, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-79, June.
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  15. Kirman, A., 1997. "Interaction and Markets," G.R.E.Q.A.M. 97a02, Universite Aix-Marseille III.
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  16. Kirman, Alan P., 1983. "Communication in markets : A suggested approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 101-108. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. David M. Cutler & James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1989. "What Moves Stock Prices?," NBER Working Papers 2538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Kirman, Alan P & Oddou, Claude & Weber, Shlomo, 1986. "Stochastic Communication and Coalition Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(1), pages 129-38, January. [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. Valentyn Panchenko & Sergiy Gerasymchuk & Oleg V. Pavlov, 2007. "Asset price dynamics with small world interactions under hetereogeneous beliefs," Working Papers 149, Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Venice. [Downloadable!]
  2. M.G. Zimmermann, V. M. Eguiluz, 2001. "Evolution of Cooperative Networks and the Emergence of Leadership," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 171, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Makoto Nirei, 2008. "Self-organized criticality in a herd behavior model of financial markets," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 89-97, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Yang, J-H.S. & Satchell, S.E., 2003. "Endogenous Correlation," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0321, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
  5. Michael A. Clemens & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2000. "Where did British Foreign Capital Go? Fundamentals, Failures and the Lucas Paradox: 1870-1913," NBER Working Papers 8028, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Arnswald, Torsten, 2001. "Investment Behaviour of German Equity Fund Managers," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2001,08, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
  7. Frank Westerhoff, 2004. "The effectiveness of Keynes-Tobin transaction taxes when heterogeneous agents can trade in different markets: A behavioral finance approach," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 14, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Paul Jefferies & Michael Hart & Neil Johnson & P.M. Hui, 2001. "From market games to real-world markets," OFRC Working Papers Series 2001mf02, Oxford Financial Research Centre. [Downloadable!]
  9. Denis Phan & Stephane Pajot & Jean-Pierre Nadal, 2003. "The Monopolist's Market with Discrete Choices and Network Externality Revisited: Small-Worlds, Phase Transition and Avalanches in an ACE Framework," Computing in Economics and Finance 2003 150, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  10. Oliver Hein & Michael Schwind & Markus Spiwoks, 2008. "Frankfurt Artificial Stock Market: a microscopic stock market model with heterogeneous interacting agents in small-world communication networks," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 59-71, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Hokky Situngkir & Yohanes Surya, 2005. "On Stock Market Dynamics through Ultrametricity of Minimum Spanning Tree," Macroeconomics 0505010, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  12. Michel Beine & Agnes Benassy-Quere & Helene Colas, 2003. "Imitation Amongst Exchange-Rate Forecasters: Evidence from Survey Data," Working Papers 2003-08, CEPII research center. [Downloadable!]
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