IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/beexfi/v10y2016icp63-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why is gold a safe haven?

Author

Listed:
  • Baur, Dirk G.
  • McDermott, Thomas K.J.

Abstract

Gold is a prominent safe haven asset but risky compared to other safe haven assets such as US government bonds. We identify unique features of gold that explain why investors under stress buy the riskier alternative gold. We argue that the decision to buy gold is rooted in behavioral biases associated with gold’s history as a currency, a store of value and a safe haven. The empirical analysis shows that gold was a particularly strong safe haven in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and the Lehman bankruptcy in September 2008. The Global Financial Crisis also exemplifies the role of the US dollar as a safe haven currency and how it can mask the safe haven effect of gold. Finally, we find that safe haven assets do not exacerbate crises via a negative feedback effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Baur, Dirk G. & McDermott, Thomas K.J., 2016. "Why is gold a safe haven?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 63-71.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:beexfi:v:10:y:2016:i:c:p:63-71
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2016.03.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214635016300107
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbef.2016.03.002?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Safe haven; Safe assets; Gold; Flight to gold; Decision-making under stress; Local thinking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • 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:eee:beexfi:v:10:y:2016:i:c:p:63-71. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-behavioral-and-experimental-finance .

    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.