IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v183y2021icp700-717.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Leverage and asset prices: An experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Cipriani, Marco
  • Fostel, Ana
  • Houser, Daniel

Abstract

We develop a model of leverage that is amenable to laboratory implementation and gather experimental data. We compare two economies that only differ in one dimension: in one economy, agents cannot borrow; in the other, they can leverage a risky asset to issue debt. Leverage increases asset prices in the laboratory. This increase is significant and quantitatively close to what theory predicts. Moreover, also as theory suggests, leverage allows gains from trade to be realized in the laboratory. Finally, the mechanism generating the price increase in the lab is due to the asset role as collateral, and different from what we would observe with a simple credit line or bigger cash endowments.

Suggested Citation

  • Cipriani, Marco & Fostel, Ana & Houser, Daniel, 2021. "Leverage and asset prices: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 700-717.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:183:y:2021:i:c:p:700-717
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.01.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268121000160
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.01.005?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sascha Füllbrunn & Tibor Neugebauer, 2012. "Margin Trading Bans in Experimental Asset Markets," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-058, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    2. Lugovskyy, Volodymyr & Puzzello, Daniela & Tucker, Steven & Williams, Arlington, 2014. "Asset-holdings caps and bubbles in experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 781-797.
    3. Fostel, Ana & Geanakoplos, John, 2012. "Why does bad news increase volatility and decrease leverage?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 501-525.
    4. Gromb, Denis & Vayanos, Dimitri, 2002. "Equilibrium and welfare in markets with financially constrained arbitrageurs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 361-407.
    5. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2012. "Tranching, CDS, and Asset Prices: How Financial Innovation Can Cause Bubbles and Crashes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 190-225, January.
    6. Nicolae Gârleanu & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2011. "Margin-based Asset Pricing and Deviations from the Law of One Price," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 1980-2022.
    7. Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2009. "Deciphering the Liquidity and Credit Crunch 2007-2008," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 77-100, Winter.
    8. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2009. "Market Liquidity and Funding Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2201-2238, June.
    9. Marco Cipriani & Ana Fostel & Daniel Houser, 2019. "Endogenous Leverage and Default in the Laboratory," Staff Reports 900, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    10. John Geanakoplos, 2009. "The Leverage Cycle," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1715R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jan 2010.
    11. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2011. "Endogenous Leverage: VaR and Beyond," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1800, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    12. John Geanakoplos & Ana Fostel, 2008. "Leverage Cycles and the Anxious Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1211-1244, September.
    13. Plott, Charles R & Sunder, Shyam, 1982. "Efficiency of Experimental Security Markets with Insider Information: An Application of Rational-Expectations Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(4), pages 663-698, August.
    14. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    15. Charles N. Noussair & Steven Tucker, 2016. "Cash Inflows And Bubbles In Asset Markets With Constant Fundamental Values," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(3), pages 1596-1606, July.
    16. Vernon L. Smith, 1962. "An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70, pages 111-111.
    17. Alp Simsek, 2013. "Belief Disagreements and Collateral Constraints," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(1), pages 1-53, January.
    18. Johannes Brumm & Michael Grill & Felix Kubler & Karl Schmedders, 2015. "Collateral Requirements And Asset Prices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56, pages 1-25, February.
    19. Viral V. Acharya & S. Viswanathan, 2011. "Leverage, Moral Hazard, and Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 99-138, February.
    20. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2014. "Endogenous Collateral Constraints and the Leverage Cycle," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 771-799, August.
    21. Ernan Haruvy & Charles N. Noussair, 2006. "The Effect of Short Selling on Bubbles and Crashes in Experimental Spot Asset Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1119-1157, June.
    22. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisière & Sébastien Pouget, 2014. "Equilibrium Discovery and Preopening Mechanisms in an Experimental Market," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 753-769, March.
    23. Adrian, Tobias & Shin, Hyun Song, 2010. "Liquidity and leverage," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 418-437, July.
    24. John Geanakoplos, 2010. "The Leverage Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 1-65, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Marco Cipriani & Ana Fostel & Daniel Houser, 2018. "Collateral Constraints and the Law of One Price: An Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 73(6), pages 2757-2786, December.
    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. Sean Crockett, 2013. "Price Dynamics In General Equilibrium Experiments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 421-438, July.
    2. Rud, Olga A. & Rabanal, Jean Paul & Sharifova, Manizha, 2019. "An experiment on the efficiency of bilateral exchange under incomplete markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 253-267.
    3. Bengui, Julien & Phan, Toan, 2018. "Asset pledgeability and endogenously leveraged bubbles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 280-314.
    4. Mehmet Benturk & Marshall J. Burak, 2018. "Modelling Haircuts: Evidence from NYSE Stocks," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 8(4), pages 1-6.

    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. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2012. "Tranching, CDS, and Asset Prices: How Financial Innovation Can Cause Bubbles and Crashes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 190-225, January.
    2. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," 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 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    3. Wang, F. Albert, 2022. "Double leverage cycle, interest rate, and financial crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    4. Mehmet Benturk & Marshall J. Burak, 2018. "Modelling Haircuts: Evidence from NYSE Stocks," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 8(4), pages 1-6.
    5. Karlis, Alexandros & Galanis, Girogos & Terovitis, Spyridon & Turner, Matthew, 2017. "Heterogeneity and Clustering of Defaults," Economic Research Papers 270011, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    6. Istiak, Khandokar & Serletis, Apostolos, 2020. "Risk, uncertainty, and leverage," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 257-273.
    7. Fostel, Ana & Geanakoplos, John, 2012. "Why does bad news increase volatility and decrease leverage?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 501-525.
    8. A. K. Karlis & G. Galanis & S. Terovitis & M. S. Turner, 2021. "Heterogeneity and clustering of defaults," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(9), pages 1533-1549, September.
    9. Feixue Gong & Gregory Phelan, 2020. "Debt collateralization, capital structure, and maximal leverage," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(2), pages 579-605, September.
    10. Wei Xiong, 2013. "Bubbles, Crises, and Heterogeneous Beliefs," NBER Working Papers 18905, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Gregory Phelan, 2017. "Collateralized borrowing and increasing risk," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(2), pages 471-502, February.
    12. Amir Akbari & Francesca Carrieri & Aytek Malkhozov, 2017. "Reversals in Global Market Integration and Funding Liquidity," International Finance Discussion Papers 1202, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    13. ÅžimÅŸek, Alp, 2021. "The Macroeconomics of Financial Speculation," CEPR Discussion Papers 15733, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Tobias Adrian & Emanuel Moench & Hyun Song Shin, 2013. "Dynamic Leverage Asset Pricing," Staff Reports 625, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    15. Timmer, Yannick, 2018. "Cyclical investment behavior across financial institutions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(2), pages 268-286.
    16. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2013. "Leverage and Default in Binomial Economies: A Complete Characterization," Working Papers 2013-16, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    17. Aikins Abakah, Emmanuel Joel & Gil-Alana, Luis A. & Arthur, Emmanuel Kwesi & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar, 2022. "Measuring volatility persistence in leveraged loan markets in the presence of structural breaks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 141-152.
    18. Galo Nuño & Carlos Thomas, 2017. "Bank Leverage Cycles," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 32-72, April.
    19. Andrea Ajello & Nina Boyarchenko & François Gourio & Andrea Tambalotti, 2022. "Financial Stability Considerations for Monetary Policy: Theoretical Mechanisms," Staff Reports 1002, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    20. Bleck, Alexander & Liu, Xuewen, 2018. "Credit expansion and credit misallocation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 27-40.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Leverage; Asset pricing; Experimental economics; Elicitation method; Incomplete markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:jeborg:v:183:y:2021:i:c:p:700-717. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.