IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

The Spirit of Capitalism and Stock-Market Prices

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Gurdip S. Bakshi

    (Department of Economics and Finance, University of New Orleans
    University of Maryland)

  • Zhiwu Chen

    (Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University)

Abstract

In existing theory, wealth is no more valuable than its implied consumption rewards. In reality investors acquire wealth not just for its implied consumption, but for the resulting social status. Max M. Weber refers to this desire for wealth as the spirit of capitalism. We examine, both analytically and empirically, implications of Weber's hypothesis for consumption, savings, and stock prices. When investors care about relative social status, propensity to consume and risktaking behavior wvildl epend on social standards, and stock prices will be volatile. The spirit of capitalism seems to be a driving force behind stock-market volatility and economic growth.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://down.aefweb.net/WorkingPapers/w511.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics in its series CEMA Working Papers with number 511.

as
in new window

Length: 26 pages
Date of creation: 1996
Publication status: Published in The American Economic Review, Vol. 86, No. 1 (Mar., 1996), pp. 133-157
Handle: RePEc:cuf:wpaper:511
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://cema.cufe.edu.cn/

More information through EDIRC

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
  • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
  • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Heng-fu Zou, 1993. "The Capitalist Spirit and a Resolution of the Savings Puzzle," CEMA Working Papers 478, China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics.
  2. Hansen, Lars Peter & Jagannathan, Ravi, 1991. "Implications of Security Market Data for Models of Dynamic Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 225-262, April.
  3. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
  4. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-987, December.
  5. Hansen, Lars Peter & Heaton, John & Luttmer, Erzo G J, 1995. "Econometric Evaluation of Asset Pricing Models," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(2), pages 237-274.
  6. Constantinides, George M, 1990. "Habit Formation: A Resolution of the Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 519-543, June.
  7. Robson, Arthur J, 1992. "Status, the Distribution of Wealth, Private and Social Attitudes to Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 837-857, July.
  8. Ferson, Wayne E. & Constantinides, George M., 1991. "Habit persistence and durability in aggregate consumption: Empirical tests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 199-240, October.
  9. Harry Markowitz, 1952. "The Utility of Wealth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60, pages 151-151.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cuf:wpaper:511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Qiang Gao)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.