IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/mgtdec/v20y1999i6p327-342.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Skewness preference, mean-variance and the demand for put options

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey Poitras

    (Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada)

  • John Heaney

    (Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada)

Abstract

This paper compares the mean-variance and the mean-variance-skewness approaches to modelling expected utility. Attention is focused on a problem encountered in risk management: determining the optimal demand for a put option hedging the return on an asset with a negatively skewed return distribution. It is demonstrated theoretically that incorporating positive skewness preference into the decision-maker's objective function typically produces a reduction in the demand for put options when compared with the mean-variance solution. A state-dependent example is provided to illustrate how a mean-variance-skewness objective can result in a significant reduction in the optimal amount of crop insurance demanded when compared with the mean-variance solution. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey Poitras & John Heaney, 1999. "Skewness preference, mean-variance and the demand for put options," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(6), pages 327-342.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:20:y:1999:i:6:p:327-342
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1468(199909)20:6<327::AID-MDE948>3.0.CO;2-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Loistl, Otto, 1976. "The Erroneous Approximation of Expected Utility by Means of a Taylor's Series Expansion: Analytic and Computational Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(5), pages 904-910, December.
    2. Hassett, Matt & Stephen Sears, R. & Trennepohl, Gary L., 1985. "Asset preference, skewness, and the measurement of expected utility," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 35-47, February.
    3. Ormiston, Michael B & Quiggin, John, 1993. "Two-Parameter Decision Models and Rank-Dependent Expected Utility," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 273-282, December.
    4. Kroll, Yoram & Levy, Haim & Markowitz, Harry M, 1984. "Mean-Variance versus Direct Utility Maximization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(1), pages 47-61, March.
    5. Levy, H & Markowtiz, H M, 1979. "Approximating Expected Utility by a Function of Mean and Variance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 308-317, June.
    6. David E. Bell, 1995. "Risk, Return, and Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(1), pages 23-30, January.
    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. Donald Lien & Kit Pong Wong, 2006. "International tenders and futures hedging," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 587-594.
    2. Ali, Heba, 2019. "Does downside risk matter more in asset pricing? Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 154-174.

    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. Markowitz, Harry, 2014. "Mean–variance approximations to expected utility," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 346-355.
    2. Monica Billio & Bertrand Maillet & Loriana Pelizzon, 2022. "A meta-measure of performance related to both investors and investments characteristics," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 313(2), pages 1405-1447, June.
    3. Emmanuel Jurczenko & Bertrand Maillet & Paul Merlin, 2008. "Efficient Frontier for Robust Higher-order Moment Portfolio Selection," Post-Print halshs-00336475, HAL.
    4. Eric Jondeau & Michael Rockinger, 2006. "Optimal Portfolio Allocation under Higher Moments," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 12(1), pages 29-55, January.
    5. Michenaud, Sébastien & Solnik, Bruno, 2008. "Applying regret theory to investment choices: Currency hedging decisions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 677-694, September.
    6. Diamond, Harvey & Gelles, Gregory, 1999. "Gaussian approximation of expected utility," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 301-307, September.
    7. Duane Rockerbie & Stephen Easton, 2018. "Revenue Sharing in Major League Baseball: The Moments That Meant so Much," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-16, August.
    8. Johnson, Michael & O'Connor, Ian & Malcolm, Bill, 2006. "Agribusiness Assets in Investment Portfolios," 2006 Conference (50th), February 8-10, 2006, Sydney, Australia 139794, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    9. Guo, Xu & Lien, Donald & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2015. "Good Approximation of Exponential Utility Function for Optimal Futures Hedging," MPRA Paper 66841, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. M. Glawischnig & I. Seidl, 2013. "Portfolio optimization with serially correlated, skewed and fat tailed index returns," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 21(1), pages 153-176, January.
    11. Kassimatis, Konstantinos, 2021. "Mean-variance versus utility maximization revisited: The case of constant relative risk aversion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. repec:bpj:pepspp:v:18:y:2012:i:3:p:3:n:9 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Rose A. Nyikal & Willis O. Kosura, 2005. "Risk preference and optimal enterprise combinations in Kahuro division of Murang'a district, Kenya," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 32(2), pages 131-140, March.
    14. Giovanni Mastrobuoni & David A Rivers, 2019. "Optimising Criminal Behaviour and the Disutility of Prison," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1364-1399.
    15. Simaan, Majeed & Simaan, Yusif & Tang, Yi, 2018. "Estimation error in mean returns and the mean-variance efficient frontier," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 109-124.
    16. Phillips Peter J, 2012. "The lone wolf terrorist: sprees of violence," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 18(3), pages 1-3, December.
    17. Penaranda, Francisco, 2007. "Portfolio choice beyond the traditional approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24481, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Harry M. Markowitz, 2002. "Efficient Portfolios, Sparse Matrices, and Entities: A Retrospective," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 154-160, February.
    19. Andrea Morone, 2008. "Comparison of Mean-Variance Theory and Expected-Utility Theory through a Laboratory Experiment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(40), pages 1-7.
    20. Fatma Lajeri-Chaherli, 2016. "On The Concavity And Quasiconcavity Properties Of ( Σ , Μ ) Utility Functions," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 287-296, April.
    21. Harry Markowitz & Joseph Blasi & Douglas Kruse, 2010. "Employee stock ownership and diversification," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 95-107, April.

    More about this item

    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:wly:mgtdec:v:20:y:1999:i:6:p:327-342. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/7976 .

    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.