IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/manchs/v76y2008is1p134-156.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mean–Variance Versus Full‐Scale Optimization: Broad Evidence For The Uk

Author

Listed:
  • BJÖRN HAGSTRÖMER
  • RICHARD G. ANDERSON
  • JANE M. BINNER
  • THOMAS ELGER
  • BIRGER NILSSON

Abstract

Portfolio choice by full‐scale optimization applies the empirical return distribution to a parameterized utility function, and the maximum is found through numerical optimization. Using a portfolio choice setting of three UK equity indices we identify several utility functions featuring loss aversion and prospect theory, under which full‐scale optimization is a substantially better approach than the mean–variance approach. As the equity indices have return distributions with small deviations from normality, the findings indicate much broader usefulness of full‐scale optimization than has earlier been shown. The results hold in‐ and out‐of‐sample, and the performance improvements are given in terms of utility as well as certainty equivalents.

Suggested Citation

  • Björn Hagströmer & Richard G. Anderson & Jane M. Binner & Thomas Elger & Birger Nilsson, 2008. "Mean–Variance Versus Full‐Scale Optimization: Broad Evidence For The Uk," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 76(s1), pages 134-156, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:76:y:2008:i:s1:p:134-156
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9957.2008.01084.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9957.2008.01084.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9957.2008.01084.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul A. Samuelson, 1970. "The Fundamental Approximation Theorem of Portfolio Analysis in terms of Means, Variances and Higher Moments," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 37(4), pages 537-542.
    2. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2005. "Tests for Skewness, Kurtosis, and Normality for Time Series Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 49-60, January.
    3. Harry Markowitz, 1952. "Portfolio Selection," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 7(1), pages 77-91, March.
    4. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Jarque, Carlos M. & Bera, Anil K., 1980. "Efficient tests for normality, homoscedasticity and serial independence of regression residuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 255-259.
    6. J. Tobin, 1958. "Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 25(2), pages 65-86.
    7. Gourieroux, C. & Monfort, A., 2005. "The econometrics of efficient portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-41, January.
    8. Goffe, William L. & Ferrier, Gary D. & Rogers, John, 1994. "Global optimization of statistical functions with simulated annealing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 65-99.
    9. Levy, Haim, 1969. "A Utility Function Depending on the First Three Moments: Comment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 24(4), pages 715-719, September.
    10. Scott, Robert C & Horvath, Philip A, 1980. "On the Direction of Preference for Moments of Higher Order Than the Variance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(4), pages 915-919, September.
    11. Benoit Mandelbrot, 2015. "The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 3, pages 39-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Levy, H & Markowtiz, H M, 1979. "Approximating Expected Utility by a Function of Mean and Variance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 308-317, June.
    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.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Johnstone & Dennis Lindley, 2013. "Mean-Variance and Expected Utility: The Borch Paradox," Papers 1306.2728, arXiv.org.
    2. Kassimatis, Konstantinos, 2021. "Mean-variance versus utility maximization revisited: The case of constant relative risk aversion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hagströmer, Björn & Anderson, Richard G. & Binner, Jane & Elger, Thomas & Nilsson, Birger, 2007. "Mean-Variance vs. Full-Scale Optimization: Broad Evidence for the UK," Working Papers 2008:1, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    2. Eric Jondeau & Michael Rockinger, 2006. "Optimal Portfolio Allocation under Higher Moments," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 12(1), pages 29-55, January.
    3. Rand Kwong Yew Low, 2018. "Vine copulas: modelling systemic risk and enhancing higher‐moment portfolio optimisation," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(S1), pages 423-463, November.
    4. Briec, Walter & Kerstens, Kristiaan, 2010. "Portfolio selection in multidimensional general and partial moment space," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 636-656, April.
    5. Emmanuel Jurczenko & Bertrand Maillet & Paul Merlin, 2008. "Efficient Frontier for Robust Higher-order Moment Portfolio Selection," Post-Print halshs-00336475, HAL.
    6. Haim Levy, 2010. "The CAPM is Alive and Well: A Review and Synthesis," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 16(1), pages 43-71, January.
    7. Bjorn Hagstromer & Jane Binner, 2009. "Stock portfolio selection with full-scale optimization and differential evolution," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(19), pages 1559-1571.
    8. Lassance, Nathan, 2022. "Reconciling mean-variance portfolio theory with non-Gaussian returns," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 297(2), pages 729-740.
    9. Keith Vorkink & Douglas J. Hodgson & Oliver Linton, 2002. "Testing the capital asset pricing model efficiently under elliptical symmetry: a semiparametric approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(6), pages 617-639.
    10. Gourieroux, C. & Monfort, A., 2005. "The econometrics of efficient portfolios," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-41, January.
    11. Qu, Xiangyu, 2017. "Subjective mean–variance preferences without expected utility," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 31-39.
    12. Smimou, K., 2014. "International portfolio choice and political instability risk: A multi-objective approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 546-560.
    13. Immanuel Seidl, 2012. "Markowitz versus Regime Switching: An Empirical Approach," The Review of Finance and Banking, Academia de Studii Economice din Bucuresti, Romania / Facultatea de Finante, Asigurari, Banci si Burse de Valori / Catedra de Finante, vol. 4(1), pages 033-043, June.
    14. Wang, Chou-Wen & Liu, Kai & Li, Bin & Tan, Ken Seng, 2022. "Portfolio optimization under multivariate affine generalized hyperbolic distributions," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 49-66.
    15. Eric Jondeau & Michael Rockinger, 2005. "Conditional Asset Allocation under Non-Normality: How Costly is the Mean-Variance Criterion?," FAME Research Paper Series rp132, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    16. Goh, Joel Weiqiang & Lim, Kian Guan & Sim, Melvyn & Zhang, Weina, 2012. "Portfolio value-at-risk optimization for asymmetrically distributed asset returns," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 221(2), pages 397-406.
    17. Lambert, M. & Hübner, G., 2013. "Comoment risk and stock returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 191-205.
    18. K. Saranya & P. Prasanna, 2014. "Portfolio Selection and Optimization with Higher Moments: Evidence from the Indian Stock Market," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 21(2), pages 133-149, May.
    19. Krüger, Jens, 2021. "Nonparametric Portfolio Efficiency Measurement with Higher Moments," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 130825, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    20. Levy, Haim & Levy, Moshe, 2021. "Stocks versus bonds for the long run when a riskless asset is available," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:76:y:2008:i:s1:p:134-156. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.