IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/compec/v26y2005i1p19-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimation of Agent-Based Models: The Case of an Asymmetric Herding Model

Author

Listed:
  • Simone Alfarano
  • Thomas Lux
  • Friedrich Wagner

Abstract

The behavioral origins of the stylized facts of financial returns have been addressed in a growing body of agent-based models of financial markets. While the traditional efficient market viewpoint explains all statistical properties of returns by similar features of the news arrival process, the more recent behavioral finance models explain them as imprints of universal patterns of interaction in these markets. In this paper we contribute to this literature by introducing a very simple agent-based model in which the ubiquitous stylized facts (fat tails, volatility clustering) are emergent properties of the interaction among traders. The simplicity of the model allows us to estimate the underlying parameters, since it is possible to derive a closed form solution for the distribution of returns. We show that the tail shape characterizing the fatness of the unconditional distribution of returns can be directly derived from some structural variables that govern the traders’ interactions, namely the herding propensity and the autonomous switching tendency. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Simone Alfarano & Thomas Lux & Friedrich Wagner, 2005. "Estimation of Agent-Based Models: The Case of an Asymmetric Herding Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 19-49, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:compec:v:26:y:2005:i:1:p:19-49
    DOI: 10.1007/s10614-005-6415-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10614-005-6415-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10614-005-6415-1?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. Westerhoff Frank H. & Reitz Stefan, 2003. "Nonlinearities and Cyclical Behavior: The Role of Chartists and Fundamentalists," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(4), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Vigfusson, Robert, 1997. "Switching between Chartists and Fundamentalists: A Markov Regime-Switching Approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(4), pages 291-305, October.
    3. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    4. Lobato, Ignacio N & Savin, N E, 1998. "Real and Spurious Long-Memory Properties of Stock-Market Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(3), pages 261-268, July.
    5. Youssefmir, Michael & Huberman, Bernardo A., 1997. "Clustered volatility in multiagent dynamics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 101-118, January.
    6. Thomas Lux & Michele Marchesi, 1999. "Scaling and criticality in a stochastic multi-agent model of a financial market," Nature, Nature, vol. 397(6719), pages 498-500, February.
    7. William A. Brock & Cars H. Hommes, 1997. "A Rational Route to Randomness," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(5), pages 1059-1096, September.
    8. Phillip Kearns & Adrian Pagan, 1997. "Estimating The Density Tail Index For Financial Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 171-175, May.
    9. Elerain, Ola & Chib, Siddhartha & Shephard, Neil, 2001. "Likelihood Inference for Discretely Observed Nonlinear Diffusions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(4), pages 959-993, July.
    10. Kirman Alan & Teyssière Gilles, 2002. "Microeconomic Models for Long Memory in the Volatility of Financial Time Series," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(4), pages 1-23, January.
    11. Simone Alfarano & Thomas Lux, 2007. "A Minimal Noise Trader Model with Realistic Time Series Properties," Springer Books, in: Gilles Teyssière & Alan P. Kirman (ed.), Long Memory in Economics, pages 345-361, Springer.
    12. William A. Brock & Cars H. Hommes, 2001. "A Rational Route to Randomness," Chapters, in: W. D. Dechert (ed.), Growth Theory, Nonlinear Dynamics and Economic Modelling, chapter 16, pages 402-438, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Pagan, Adrian, 1996. "The econometrics of financial markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 15-102, May.
    14. Alan Kirman, 1993. "Ants, Rationality, and Recruitment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(1), pages 137-156.
    15. Beja, Avraham & Goldman, M Barry, 1980. "On the Dynamic Behavior of Prices in Disequilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(2), pages 235-248, May.
    16. Alfarano, Simone & Lux, Thomas & Wagner, Friedrich, 2008. "Time variation of higher moments in a financial market with heterogeneous agents: An analytical approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 101-136, January.
    17. P. Gopikrishnan & M. Meyer & L.A.N. Amaral & H.E. Stanley, 1998. "Inverse cubic law for the distribution of stock price variations," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 3(2), pages 139-140, July.
    18. Simone Alfarano & Thomas Lux, 2002. "A minimal noise trader model with realistic time series," Computing in Economics and Finance 2002 317, Society for Computational Economics.
    19. LeBaron, Blake, 2000. "Agent-based computational finance: Suggested readings and early research," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(5-7), pages 679-702, June.
    20. Wagner, Friedrich, 2003. "Volatility cluster and herding," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 322(C), pages 607-619.
    21. Gilli, M. & Winker, P., 2003. "A global optimization heuristic for estimating agent based models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 299-312, March.
    22. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    23. Lobato, Ignacio N & Savin, N E, 1998. "Real and Spurious Long-Memory Properties of Stock-Market Data: Reply," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(3), pages 280-283, July.
    24. Benoit Mandelbrot, 2015. "The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 3, pages 39-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    25. De Vries, C.G. & Leuven, K.U., 1994. "Stylized Facts of Nominal Exchange Rate Returns," Papers 94-002, Purdue University, Krannert School of Management - Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).
    26. F. De Jong & F. C. Drost & B. J. M. Werker, 2001. "A Jump‐diffusion Model for Exchange Rates in a Target Zone," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 55(3), pages 270-300, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Lux, Thomas, 2008. "Stochastic behavioral asset pricing models and the stylized facts," Kiel Working Papers 1426, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Hommes, Cars H., 2006. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance," Handbook of Computational Economics, in: Leigh Tesfatsion & Kenneth L. Judd (ed.), Handbook of Computational Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 23, pages 1109-1186, Elsevier.
    3. Alfarano, Simone & Lux, Thomas, 2007. "A Noise Trader Model As A Generator Of Apparent Financial Power Laws And Long Memory," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(S1), pages 80-101, November.
    4. E. Samanidou & E. Zschischang & D. Stauffer & T. Lux, 2001. "Microscopic Models of Financial Markets," Papers cond-mat/0110354, arXiv.org.
    5. Lux, Thomas & Alfarano, Simone, 2016. "Financial power laws: Empirical evidence, models, and mechanisms," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 3-18.
    6. Lux, Thomas, 2008. "Stochastic behavioral asset pricing models and the stylized facts," Economics Working Papers 2008-08, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    7. E. Samanidou & E. Zschischang & D. Stauffer & T. Lux, 2007. "Agent-based Models of Financial Markets," Papers physics/0701140, arXiv.org.
    8. Xue-Zhong He & Youwei Li, 2017. "The adaptiveness in stock markets: testing the stylized facts in the DAX 30," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(5), pages 1071-1094, November.
    9. Cars Hommes & Florian Wagener, 2008. "Complex Evolutionary Systems in Behavioral Finance," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-054/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Hommes, C.H., 2005. "Heterogeneous Agent Models in Economics and Finance, In: Handbook of Computational Economics II: Agent-Based Computational Economics, edited by Leigh Tesfatsion and Ken Judd , Elsevier, Amsterdam 2006," CeNDEF Working Papers 05-03, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    11. Detlef Seese & Christof Weinhardt & Frank Schlottmann (ed.), 2008. "Handbook on Information Technology in Finance," International Handbooks on Information Systems, Springer, number 978-3-540-49487-4, November.
    12. Simone Alfarano & Thomas Lux, 2007. "A Minimal Noise Trader Model with Realistic Time Series Properties," Springer Books, in: Gilles Teyssière & Alan P. Kirman (ed.), Long Memory in Economics, pages 345-361, Springer.
    13. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Youwei, 2015. "Testing of a market fraction model and power-law behaviour in the DAX 30," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-17.
    14. Lux, Thomas, 2006. "Financial power laws: Empirical evidence, models, and mechanism," Economics Working Papers 2006-12, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    15. Alfarano, Simone & Milakovic, Mishael, 2009. "Network structure and N-dependence in agent-based herding models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 78-92, January.
    16. David Vidal-Tomás & Simone Alfarano, 2020. "An agent-based early warning indicator for financial market instability," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 15(1), pages 49-87, January.
    17. Torsten Trimborn & Philipp Otte & Simon Cramer & Maximilian Beikirch & Emma Pabich & Martin Frank, 2020. "SABCEMM: A Simulator for Agent-Based Computational Economic Market Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 707-744, February.
    18. Torsten Trimborn & Philipp Otte & Simon Cramer & Max Beikirch & Emma Pabich & Martin Frank, 2018. "SABCEMM-A Simulator for Agent-Based Computational Economic Market Models," Papers 1801.01811, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2018.
    19. Kaizoji, Taisei & Leiss, Matthias & Saichev, Alexander & Sornette, Didier, 2015. "Super-exponential endogenous bubbles in an equilibrium model of fundamentalist and chartist traders," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 289-310.
    20. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Youwei, 2007. "Power-law behaviour, heterogeneity, and trend chasing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(10), pages 3396-3426, October.

    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:compec:v:26:y:2005:i:1:p:19-49. 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.