IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boe/boeewp/283.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring investors' risk appetite

Author

Listed:
  • Prasanna Gai
  • Nicholas Vause

Abstract

This paper proposes a new method for measuring investor 'risk appetite'. Like other indicators in the literature, it is based on a comparison of risk-neutral probabilities of future returns with the corresponding subjective probabilities. The precise nature of the comparison is novel, however, and involves comparing probabilities across the full range of potential returns. Unlike other indicators, our measure of market sentiment distinguishes risk appetite from risk aversion, and is reported in levels rather than changes. Implementation of the approach yields results that respond to crises and other major economic events in a plausible manner.

Suggested Citation

  • Prasanna Gai & Nicholas Vause, 2005. "Measuring investors' risk appetite," Bank of England working papers 283, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:283
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/research/Documents/workingpapers/2005/WP283.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Danthine, Jean-Pierre & Donaldson, John B., 2014. "Intermediate Financial Theory," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 3, number 9780123865496.
    2. Owen Lamont, 1998. "Earnings and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1563-1587, October.
    3. Martin Scheicher, 2003. "What drives investor risk aversion? Daily evidence from the German equity market," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, June.
    4. Campbell, John Y & Shiller, Robert J, 1988. " Stock Prices, Earnings, and Expected Dividends," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(3), pages 661-676, July.
    5. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine & Lo, Andrew W., 2000. "Nonparametric risk management and implied risk aversion," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 9-51.
    6. Bollerslev, Tim & Gibson, Michael & Zhou, Hao, 2011. "Dynamic estimation of volatility risk premia and investor risk aversion from option-implied and realized volatilities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 235-245, January.
    7. Kumar, Manmohan S & Persaud, Avinash, 2002. "Pure Contagion and Investors' Shifting Risk Appetite: Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(3), pages 401-436, Winter.
    8. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten, 2000. "Recovering Risk Aversion from Option Prices and Realized Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 433-451.
    9. Miroslav Misina, 2003. "What does the risk-appetite index measure?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 28(6), pages 1-6.
    10. Manmohan S. Kumar & Avinash Persaud, 2002. "Pure Contagion and Investors’ Shifting Risk Appetite: Analytical Issues and Empirical Evidence," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(3), pages 401-436, November.
    11. Glosten, Lawrence R & Jagannathan, Ravi & Runkle, David E, 1993. "On the Relation between the Expected Value and the Volatility of the Nominal Excess Return on Stocks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1779-1801, December.
    12. Kothari, S. P. & Shanken, Jay, 1992. "Stock return variation and expected dividends : A time-series and cross-sectional analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 177-210, April.
    13. Kenneth A. Froot & Paul G. J. O'Connell, 2003. "The Risk Tolerance of International Investors," NBER Working Papers 10157, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Marcello Pericoli & Massimo Sbracia, 2006. "The CAPM and the risk appetite index; theoretical differences and empirical similarities," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 586, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:28:y:2003:i:6:p:a6 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang & Tano Santos, 2001. "Prospect Theory and Asset Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 1-53.
    17. Chen, Nai-Fu & Roll, Richard & Ross, Stephen A, 1986. "Economic Forces and the Stock Market," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 383-403, July.
    18. Robert R. Bliss & Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, 2004. "Option-Implied Risk Aversion Estimates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 407-446, February.
    19. Nikola Tarashev & Kostas Tsatsaronis & Dimitrios Karampatos, 2003. "Investors' attitude towards risk: what can we learn from options?," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, June.
    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. Coudert, Virginie & Gex, Mathieu, 2008. "Does risk aversion drive financial crises? Testing the predictive power of empirical indicators," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 167-184, March.
    2. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    3. Bian, Timothy Yang & Wang, Tianyi & Zhou, Zipeng, 2021. "Measuring investors’ risk aversion in China’s stock market," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    4. Maria Kyriacou & Jose Olmo & Marius Strittmatter, 2021. "Optimal portfolio allocation using option‐implied information," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(2), pages 266-285, February.
    5. Bollerslev, Tim & Gibson, Michael & Zhou, Hao, 2011. "Dynamic estimation of volatility risk premia and investor risk aversion from option-implied and realized volatilities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(1), pages 235-245, January.
    6. Jonathan Dark, 2021. "The lead of oil price rises on US equity market beliefs and preferences," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(11), pages 1861-1887, November.
    7. Julien Chevallier & Mathieu Gatumel & Florian Ielpo, 2014. "Commodity markets through the business cycle," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(9), pages 1597-1618, September.
    8. Miroslav Misina, 2006. "Benchmark Index of Risk Appetite," Staff Working Papers 06-16, Bank of Canada.
    9. Mathieu Gatumel & Florian Ielpo, 2014. "Commodity Markets through the business cycle," Post-Print hal-01302479, HAL.
    10. Geert Bekaert & Eric C. Engstrom & Nancy R. Xu, 2022. "The Time Variation in Risk Appetite and Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 3975-4004, June.
    11. Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris & Chang, Bo Young, 2013. "Forecasting with Option-Implied Information," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 581-656, Elsevier.
    12. George Halkos & Argyro Zisiadou, 2020. "Is Investors’ Psychology Affected Due to a Potential Unexpected Environmental Disaster?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-24, July.
    13. George Halkos & Argyro Zisiadou, 2021. "Can We Hedge an Investment Against A Potential Unexpected Environmental Disaster?," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 355-365, October.
    14. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 803-887, Elsevier.
    15. Daniel O. Beltran & Deepa Dhume Datta & Thiago Revil T. Ferreira & Matteo Iacoviello & Mohammad Jahan-Parvar & Canlin Li & Juan M. Londono & Marius del Giudice Rodriguez & John H. Rogers & Bo Sun, 2017. "Taxonomy of Global Risk, Uncertainty, and Volatility Measures," International Finance Discussion Papers 1216, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Peter Reinhard Hansen & Chen Tong, 2022. "Option Pricing with Time-Varying Volatility Risk Aversion," Papers 2204.06943, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    17. Ms. Brenda Gonzalez-Hermosillo, 2008. "Investors’ Risk Appetite and Global Financial Market Conditions," IMF Working Papers 2008/085, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Vladimir Zdorovenin & Jacques Pézier, 2011. "Does Information Content of Option Prices Add Value for Asset Allocation?," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2011-03, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
    19. Bekaert, Geert & Hoerova, Marie, 2016. "What do asset prices have to say about risk appetite and uncertainty?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 103-118.
    20. Liao, Wen Ju & Sung, Hao-Chang, 2020. "Implied risk aversion and pricing kernel in the FTSE 100 index," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:boe:boeewp:283. 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: Digital Media Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boegvuk.html .

    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.