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Ambiguity shifts and the 2007–2008 financial crisis

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  • Boyarchenko, Nina

Abstract

Faced with doubts about the quality of information and the quality of modeling techniques, ambiguity-averse agents assign higher probabilities to lower utility states, leading to higher CDS premia and lower equity prices. Using data on financial institutions, I find that the sudden increases in credit spreads during the recent crisis can be explained by changes in the amount of ambiguity faced by market participants and changes in how the total amount of ambiguity was distributed between ambiguity about information quality and ambiguity about model quality.

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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Monetary Economics.

Volume (Year): 59 (2012)
Issue (Month): 5 ()
Pages: 493-507

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Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:59:y:2012:i:5:p:493-507
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505566

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Cited by:

  1. Nina Boyarchenko & Mario Cerrato & John Crosby & Stewart Hodges, 2012. "No good deals—no bad models," Staff Reports 589, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  2. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein & Jean Helwege, 2012. "Modeling credit contagion via the updating of fragile beliefs," Working Paper Series WP-2012-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
  3. Krahnen, Jan Pieter & Ockenfels, Peter & Wilde, Christian, 2014. "Measuring ambiguity aversion: A systematic experimental approach," SAFE Working Paper Series 55, Research Center SAFE - Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe, Goethe University Frankfurt.
  4. Meglena Jeleva & Jean-Marc Tallon, 2014. "Ambiguïté, comportements et marchés financiers," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 14064, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
  5. Goodman, James, 2014. "Evidence for ecological learning and domain specificity in rational asset pricing and market efficiency," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 27-39.

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