IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cuf/journl/y2015v16i2wangzou.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Spirit of Capitalism and the Equity Premium

Author

Listed:
  • Qin Wang

    (The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Xiamen University)

  • Yiheng Zou

    (The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Xiamen University)

  • Yu Ren

    (The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Xiamen University)

  • Zhuo Huang

    (National School of Development, Peking University)

Abstract

This paper evaluates whether the spirit of capitalism can explain the equity premium puzzle. The spirit of capitalism implies that investors acquire wealth not just for consumption, but also to improve their social status. We set up a consumption-based capital asset pricing model incorporating this component. The simulated results from our calibrated model match the mean and the volatility of the equity premium observed in the data.

Suggested Citation

  • Qin Wang & Yiheng Zou & Yu Ren & Zhuo Huang, 2015. "The Spirit of Capitalism and the Equity Premium," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 16(2), pages 493-513, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cuf:journl:y:2015:v:16:i:2:wangzou
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://down.aefweb.net/AefArticles/aef160212WangZou.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yang, Wei, 2011. "Long-run risk in durable consumption," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 45-61, October.
    2. Abel, Andrew B, 1990. "Asset Prices under Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 38-42, May.
    3. Zou, Heng-fu, 1994. "'The spirit of capitalism' and long-run growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 279-293, July.
    4. Gong, Liutang & Zou, Heng-fu, 2002. "Direct preferences for wealth, the risk premium puzzle, growth, and policy effectiveness," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 247-270, February.
    5. Weil, Philippe, 1989. "The equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 401-421, November.
    6. 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 263-286, April.
    7. Bakshi, Gurdip S & Chen, Zhiwu, 1996. "The Spirit of Capitalism and Stock-Market Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 133-157, March.
    8. Robert J. Barro & Tao Jin, 2011. "On the Size Distribution of Macroeconomic Disasters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1567-1589, September.
    9. Heng-fu Zou, 1998. "The spirit of capitalism, social status, money, and accumulation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 219-233, October.
    10. Boileau, Martin & Braeu, Rebecca, 2007. "The Spirit Of Capitalism, Asset Returns, And The Business Cycle," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 214-230, April.
    11. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Karnizova, Lilia, 2010. "The spirit of capitalism and expectation-driven business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(6), pages 739-752, September.
    13. Robert J. Barro, 2006. "Rare Disasters and Asset Markets in the Twentieth Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 823-866.
    14. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    15. Jessica A. Wachter, 2013. "Can Time-Varying Risk of Rare Disasters Explain Aggregate Stock Market Volatility?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 987-1035, June.
    16. Ravi Bansal & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Risks for the Long Run: A Potential Resolution of Asset Pricing Puzzles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1481-1509, August.
    17. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 803-887, Elsevier.
    18. Lars Peter Hansen & John C. Heaton & Nan Li, 2008. "Consumption Strikes Back? Measuring Long-Run Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(2), pages 260-302, April.
    19. Smith, William T, 2001. "How Does the Spirit of Capitalism Affect Stock Market Prices?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(4), pages 1215-1232.
    20. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228.
    21. Constantinides, George M, 1990. "Habit Formation: A Resolution of the Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 519-543, June.
    22. Yulei Luo & William T. Smith & Heng-Fu Zou, 2009. "The Spirit of Capitalism, Precautionary Savings, and Consumption," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2-3), pages 543-554, March.
    23. Robert J. Barro, 2009. "Rare Disasters, Asset Prices, and Welfare Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 243-264, March.
    24. Ravi Bansal & A. Ronald Gallant & George Tauchen, 2007. "Rational Pessimism, Rational Exuberance, and Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(4), pages 1005-1033.
    25. Heng-fu Zou, 1995. "The spirit of capitalism and savings behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 131-143, September.
    26. Abel, Andrew B., 1999. "Risk premia and term premia in general equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 3-33, February.
    27. Dreyer, Johannes K. & Schneider, Johannes & Smith, William T., 2013. "Saving-based asset-pricing," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3704-3715.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Wang, Qin & Ren, Yu & Zou, Yiheng, 2016. "Uninsured expense shocks and equity premia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 64-74.
    2. Sing, Tien Foo & Zou, Yiheng, 2022. "Mortgage payments and equity premium puzzle," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 376-388.
    3. Takamizawa, Hideyuki, 2022. "An equilibrium model of the term structures of bonds and equities," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2013. "Advances in Consumption-Based Asset Pricing: Empirical Tests," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 799-906, Elsevier.
    5. Yulei Luo & Jun Nie & Heng-fu Zou, 2021. "Wealth in the Utility Function and Consumption Inequality," Research Working Paper RWP 21-17, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    6. Jerry Tsai & Jessica A. Wachter, 2015. "Disaster Risk and its Implications for Asset Pricing," NBER Working Papers 20926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Wonnho Choi, 2018. "Consumption-based capital asset pricing models: issues and controversies," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 181-205, January.
    8. Munk, Claus, 2015. "Financial Asset Pricing Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198716457.
    9. Merella, Vincenzo & Satchell, Stephen E., 2022. "By force of confidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    10. John Donaldson & Rajnish Mehra, 2007. "Risk Based Explanations of the Equity Premium," NBER Working Papers 13220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Sang Byung Seo & Jessica A. Wachter, 2019. "Option Prices in a Model with Stochastic Disaster Risk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3449-3469, August.
    12. Beeler, Jason & Campbell, John Y., 2012. "The Long-Run Risks Model and Aggregate Asset Prices: An Empirical Assessment," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 141-182, January.
    13. David Backus & Mikhail Chernov & Stanley Zin, 2014. "Sources of Entropy in Representative Agent Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(1), pages 51-99, February.
    14. Jerry Tsai & Jessica A. Wachter, 2014. "Rare Booms and Disasters in a Multi-sector Endowment Economy," NBER Working Papers 20062, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Fabrice Collard & Sujoy Mukerji & Kevin Sheppard & Jean‐Marc Tallon, 2018. "Ambiguity and the historical equity premium," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 945-993, July.
    16. Horvath, Jaroslav, 2020. "Macroeconomic disasters and the equity premium puzzle: Are emerging countries riskier?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    17. Larry G. Epstein & Emmanuel Farhi & Tomasz Strzalecki, 2014. "How Much Would You Pay to Resolve Long-Run Risk?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2680-2697, September.
    18. Luca De Gennaro Aquino & Xuedong He & Moris Simon Strub & Yuting Yang, 2024. "Reference-dependent asset pricing with a stochastic consumption-dividend ratio," Papers 2401.12856, arXiv.org.
    19. Berrada, Tony & Detemple, Jérôme & Rindisbacher, Marcel, 2018. "Asset pricing with beliefs-dependent risk aversion and learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(3), pages 504-534.
    20. Kim, Kun Ho, 2014. "Counter-cyclical risk aversion," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 384-401.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Spirit of capitalism; Consumption-based capital asset pricing model;

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:cuf:journl:y:2015:v:16:i:2:wangzou. 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: Qiang Gao (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emcufcn.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.