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Happiness Maintenance and Asset Prices

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Author Info
Antonio Falato (Columbia University)

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Abstract

This paper explores the implications of investors’ everyday mild feelings for aggregate asset returns. To this end, it introduces a novel class of state dependent preferences - happiness maintenance preferences - into the standard Mehra and Prescott (1985) economy by allowing investors’ coefficient of relative risk aversion to depend partly on their current feelings, which, in turn, are a function of the current state of the economy. Consistent with recent evidence from experimental psychology (see for example Isen (1999)), good times bring about a positive mood for investors and a heightened pain from any potential loss. In an attempt to maintain their good mood, investors become less willing to bear any portfolio risk, i.e. they become more risk averse. Extremely mild procyclical changes (a standard deviation of about one percentage point) in investors’ risk aversion are sufficient to bring the implications of a simple dynamic model of asset pricing in line with the historically observed stylized features of asset returns, without relying on unreasonable values of the behavioral parameters. With a realistic consumption process, the model is capable of accounting for a sizable equity premium in line with the one observed in the US data. It also performs well with respect to other financial statistics, such as the average risk-free rate, the volatility and predictability of stock returns and the Sharpe ratio. Being able to match the equity premium, it implies that aggregate fluctuations have important welfare costs.

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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Finance with number 0310003.

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Date of creation: 02 Oct 2003
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpfi:0310003

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Related research
Keywords: consumption-based asset pricing behavioral finance state- dependent risk aversion equity premium puzzle affect and decision making;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
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
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Full references

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. Pascal St-Amour, 2004. "Ratchet vs Blasé Investors and Asset Markets," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-11, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
  2. Pascal St-Amour, 2005. "Direct Preference for Wealth in Aggregate Household Portfolio," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 05.04, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP. [Downloadable!]
  3. Antonio Falato, 2008. "Happiness maintenance and asset prices," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-19, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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