IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/annfin/v9y2013i2p271-289.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Utilities bounded below

Author

Listed:
  • Roman Muraviev
  • L. Rogers

Abstract

It is common to work with utilities which are not bounded below, but it seems hard to reconcile this with common sense; is the plight of a man who receives only one crumb of bread a day to eat really very much worse than the plight of a man who receives two? In this paper we study utilities which are bounded below, which necessitates novel modelling elements to prevent the question becoming trivial. What we propose is that an agent is subjected to random reviews of his finances. If he is reviewed and found to be bankrupt, then he is thrown into jail, and receives some large but finite negative value. In such a framework, we find optimal investment and consumption behaviour very different from the standard story. As the agent’s wealth goes negative, he gradually abandons hope of ever becoming honest again, and plunders as much as he can before being caught. Agents with very high wealth act like standard Merton investors. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Roman Muraviev & L. Rogers, 2013. "Utilities bounded below," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 271-289, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:annfin:v:9:y:2013:i:2:p:271-289
    DOI: 10.1007/s10436-012-0212-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10436-012-0212-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10436-012-0212-3?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    2. Ioannis Karatzas & John P. Lehoczky & Suresh P. Sethi & Steven E. Shreve, 1986. "Explicit Solution of a General Consumption/Investment Problem," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 11(2), pages 261-294, May.
    3. 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..
    4. Haim Levy, 2004. "Prospect Theory and Mean-Variance Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(4), pages 1015-1041.
    5. Laurence Carassus & Miklos Rasonyi, 2011. "On optimal investment for a behavioural investor in multiperiod incomplete market models," Papers 1107.1617, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2012.
    6. Francisco J. Gomes, 2005. "Portfolio Choice and Trading Volume with Loss-Averse Investors," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 675-706, March.
    7. Shefrin, Hersh & Statman, Meir, 2000. "Behavioral Portfolio Theory," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(2), pages 127-151, June.
    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. Miklos Rasonyi, 2014. "Optimal investment with bounded above utilities in discrete time markets," Papers 1409.2023, arXiv.org.
    2. Mikl'os R'asonyi & Andrea Meireles Rodrigues, 2013. "Continuous-Time Portfolio Optimisation for a Behavioural Investor with Bounded Utility on Gains," Papers 1309.0362, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2014.

    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. Hanqing Jin & Xun Yu Zhou, 2008. "Behavioral Portfolio Selection In Continuous Time," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 385-426, July.
    2. Pasquariello, Paolo, 2014. "Prospect Theory and market quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 276-310.
    3. Leon Li & Nen-Chen Richard Hwang, 2017. "Prospect Theory and Earnings Manipulation: Examination of the Non-Uniform Relationship between Earnings Manipulation and Stock Returns Using Quantile Regression," Working Papers in Economics 17/25, University of Waikato.
    4. Yan Li & Liyan Yang, 2013. "Asset-Pricing Implications of Dividend Volatility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(9), pages 2036-2055, September.
    5. Fulga, Cristinca, 2016. "Portfolio optimization under loss aversion," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 251(1), pages 310-322.
    6. Marie-Hélène Broihanne & Maxime Merli & Patrick Roger, 2006. "Théorie comportementale du portefeuille. Intérêt et limites," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(2), pages 297-314.
    7. Xue Dong He & Xun Yu Zhou, 2011. "Portfolio Choice Under Cumulative Prospect Theory: An Analytical Treatment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(2), pages 315-331, February.
    8. 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.
    9. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    10. Arvid Hoffmann & Sam Henry & Nikos Kalogeras, 2013. "Aspirations as reference points: an experimental investigation of risk behavior over time," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 193-210, August.
    11. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten & Meyer, Steffen & Hackethal, Andreas, 2019. "Taming models of prospect theory in the wild? Estimation of Vlcek and Hens (2011)," SAFE Working Paper Series 146, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    12. Blake, David & Wright, Douglas & Zhang, Yumeng, 2013. "Target-driven investing: Optimal investment strategies in defined contribution pension plans under loss aversion," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 195-209.
    13. Servaas van Bilsen & Roger J. A. Laeven & Theo E. Nijman, 2020. "Consumption and Portfolio Choice Under Loss Aversion and Endogenous Updating of the Reference Level," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 3927-3955, September.
    14. Enrico Giorgi & Thorsten Hens, 2006. "Making prospect theory fit for finance," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 20(3), pages 339-360, September.
    15. Jaroslava Hlouskova & Jana Mikocziova & Rudolf Sivak & Peter Tsigaris, 2014. "Capital Income Taxation and Risk-Taking under Prospect Theory: The Continuous Distribution Case," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 64(5), pages 374-391, November.
    16. W. Wong & R. Chan, 2008. "Prospect and Markowitz stochastic dominance," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 105-129, January.
    17. Li, Yan & Yang, Liyan, 2013. "Prospect theory, the disposition effect, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 715-739.
    18. Valeri Zakamouline, 2014. "Portfolio performance evaluation with loss aversion," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 699-710, April.
    19. Berkelaar, Arjan & Kouwenberg, Roy, 2009. "From boom 'til bust: How loss aversion affects asset prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1005-1013, June.
    20. Wang, Jianli & Liu, Liqun & Neilson, William S., 2020. "The participation puzzle with reference-dependent expected utility preferences," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 278-287.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Expected utility; Non-concave utility; Von Neumann-Morgenstern preferences; D01; D03;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles

    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:kap:annfin:v:9:y:2013:i:2:p:271-289. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.