IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jfinqa/v54y2019i05p2209-2232_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk Aversion in a Dynamic Asset Allocation Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Brocas, Isabelle
  • Carrillo, Juan D.
  • Giga, Aleksandar
  • Zapatero, Fernando

Abstract

We conduct a controlled laboratory experiment in the spirit of Merton (1971), in which subjects dynamically choose their portfolio allocation between a risk-free and risky asset. Using the optimal allocation of an investor with hyperbolic absolute risk aversion (HARA) utility, we fit the experimental choices to characterize the risk profile of our participants. Despite substantial heterogeneity, decreasing absolute risk aversion and increasing relative risk aversion are the predominant types. We also find some evidence of increased risk taking after a gain. Finally, the session level risk attitudes show a different profile than the individual descriptions of risk attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Brocas, Isabelle & Carrillo, Juan D. & Giga, Aleksandar & Zapatero, Fernando, 2019. "Risk Aversion in a Dynamic Asset Allocation Experiment," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(5), pages 2209-2232, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:54:y:2019:i:05:p:2209-2232_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022109018001151/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uri Gneezy & Jan Potters, 1997. "An Experiment on Risk Taking and Evaluation Periods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 631-645.
    2. Johannes Abeler & Armin Falk & Lorenz Goette & David Huffman, 2011. "Reference Points and Effort Provision," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(2), pages 470-492, April.
    3. Maier, Johannes & Rüger, Maximilian, 2010. "Measuring Risk Aversion Model-Independently," Discussion Papers in Economics 11873, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    4. Hans P. Binswanger, 1980. "Attitudes Toward Risk: Experimental Measurement in Rural India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 62(3), pages 395-407.
    5. Richard H. Thaler & Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman & Alan Schwartz, 1997. "The Effect of Myopia and Loss Aversion on Risk Taking: An Experimental Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 647-661.
    6. Kroll, Yoram & Levy, Haim, 1992. "Further Tests of the Separation Theorem and the Capital Asset Pricing Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 664-670, June.
    7. Thierry Post & Martijn J. van den Assem & Guido Baltussen & Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Deal or No Deal? Decision Making under Risk in a Large-Payoff Game Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 38-71, March.
    8. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    9. John D. Hey & Chris Orme, 2018. "Investigating Generalizations Of Expected Utility Theory Using Experimental Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Experiments in Economics Decision Making and Markets, chapter 3, pages 63-98, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. David Gill & Victoria Prowse, 2012. "A Structural Analysis of Disappointment Aversion in a Real Effort Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 469-503, February.
    11. Richard H. Thaler & Eric J. Johnson, 1990. "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 643-660, June.
    12. Merton, Robert C., 1971. "Optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous-time model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 373-413, December.
    13. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    14. Steffen Andersen & Glenn Harrison & Morten Lau & E. Rutström, 2009. "Elicitation using multiple price list formats," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(3), pages 365-366, September.
    15. 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..
    16. Knetsch, Jack L. & Wong, Wei-Kang, 2009. "The endowment effect and the reference state: Evidence and manipulations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 407-413, August.
    17. Levy, Haim, 1994. "Absolute and Relative Risk Aversion: An Experimental Study," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 289-307, May.
    18. Rapoport, Amnon & Zwick, Rami & Funk, Sandra G., 1988. "Selection of portfolios with risky and riskless assets: Experimental tests of two expected utility models," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 169-194, June.
    19. Botond Koszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2007. "Reference-Dependent Risk Attitudes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1047-1073, September.
    20. Daniel Friedman & Ryan Oprea, 2012. "A Continuous Dilemma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 337-363, February.
    21. Syngjoo Choi & Raymond Fisman & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2007. "Consistency and Heterogeneity of Individual Behavior under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1921-1938, December.
    22. Catherine C. Eckel & Philip J. Grossman, 2008. "Forecasting Risk Attitudes: An Experimental Study Using Actual and Forecast Gamble Choices," Monash Economics Working Papers archive-01, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    23. Kroll, Yoram & Levy, Haim & Rapoport, Amnon, 1988. "Experimental Tests of the Separation Theorem and the Capital Asset Pricing Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 500-519, June.
    24. Keith M. Marzilli Ericson & Andreas Fuster, 2011. "Expectations as Endowments: Evidence on Reference-Dependent Preferences from Exchange and Valuation Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1879-1907.
    25. Friedman, Daniel & Isaac, R. Mark & James, Duncan & Sunder, Shyam, 2014. "Risky Curves: On the Empirical Failure of Expected Utility," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt87v8k86z, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    26. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Imas, Alex, 2013. "Experimental methods: Eliciting risk preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 43-51.
    27. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2009. "Learning from mistakes: What do inconsistent choices over risk tell us?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 143-158, April.
    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. Lauterbach, Beni & Mugerman, Yevgeny & Shemesh, Joshua, 2024. "Prospect theory in M&A: Do historical purchase prices affect merger offer premiums and announcement returns?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    2. Sungchang Kang & Jeongseok Bang & Doojin Ryu, 2024. "Female CEOs’ risk management and earnings performance during the financial crisis," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(1), pages 110-138, February.
    3. Anufriev, Mikhail & Bao, Te & Sutan, Angela & Tuinstra, Jan, 2019. "Fee structure and mutual fund choice: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 449-474.
    4. Yang, Cheng & Wang, Jie & Liu, Xiaoyu, 2024. "What affects the financial asset allocation of the elderly? From the perspective of financial literacy and risk attitude," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Chen Su, 2021. "A comprehensive investigation into style momentum strategies in China," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 35(1), pages 101-144, March.
    6. Hwang, Hae-shin & Jindapon, Paan, 2020. "Market making with convex quotes," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    7. Mulligan, Karen & Baid, Drishti & Doctor, Jason N. & Phelps, Charles E. & Lakdawalla, Darius N., 2024. "Risk preferences over health: Empirical estimates and implications for medical decision-making," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(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. Gary Charness & Thomas Garcia & Theo Offerman & Marie Claire Villeval, 2020. "Do measures of risk attitude in the laboratory predict behavior under risk in and outside of the laboratory?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 99-123, April.
    2. Heiko Karle & Dirk Engelmann & Martin Peitz, 2022. "Student performance and loss aversion," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(2), pages 420-456, April.
    3. Holzmeister, Felix, 2017. "oTree: Ready-made apps for risk preference elicitation methods," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 33-38.
    4. Gagnon-Bartsch, Tristan & Bushong, Benjamin, 2022. "Learning with misattribution of reference dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    5. Tamás Csermely & Alexander Rabas, 2016. "How to reveal people’s preferences: Comparing time consistency and predictive power of multiple price list risk elicitation methods," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 107-136, December.
    6. Holzmeister, Felix & Stefan, Matthias, 2019. "The Risk Elicitation Puzzle Revisited: Across-Methods (In)consistency?," OSF Preprints pj9u2, Center for Open Science.
    7. González-Jiménez, Víctor, 2024. "Incentive design for reference-dependent preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 493-518.
    8. Friedman, Daniel & Habib, Sameh & James, Duncan & Crockett, Sean, 2018. "Varieties of risk elicitation," Discussion Papers, Research Professorship Market Design: Theory and Pragmatics SP II 2018-501, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    9. Ahrens, Steffen & Pirschel, Inske & Snower, Dennis J., 2017. "A theory of price adjustment under loss aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 78-95.
    10. Felix Holzmeister & Matthias Stefan, 2019. "The risk elicitation puzzle revisited: Across-methods (in)consistency?," Working Papers 2019-19, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    11. Hong Chao & Chun-Yu Ho & Xiangdong Qin, 2017. "Risk taking after absolute and relative wealth changes: The role of reference point adaptation," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 157-186, April.
    12. Clist, Paul & D’Exelle, Ben & Verschoor, Arjan, 2021. "An endowment effect for risk levels: Evidence from a Ugandan lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 297-310.
    13. Felix Holzmeister & Matthias Stefan, 2021. "The risk elicitation puzzle revisited: Across-methods (in)consistency?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 593-616, June.
    14. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    15. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    16. Galarza, Francisco, 2009. "Choices under Risk in Rural Peru," MPRA Paper 17708, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Björn Bartling & Leif Brandes & Daniel Schunk, 2012. "Expectations as reference points: field evidence from experienced subjects in a competitive, high-stakes environment," ECON - Working Papers 073, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    18. Michele Garagnani, 2023. "The predictive power of risk elicitation tasks," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 165-192, October.
    19. Hsiaw, Alice, 2018. "Goal bracketing and self-control," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 100-121.
    20. Naranjo, Maria A. & Alpízar, Francisco & Martinsson, Peter, 2019. "Alternatives for Risk Elicitation in the Field: Evidence from Coffee Farmers in Costa Rica," EfD Discussion Paper 19-21, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    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:cup:jfinqa:v:54:y:2019:i:05:p:2209-2232_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jfq .

    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.