IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/frd/wpaper/dp2008-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Investors Face Financial Risk Loss Aversion and Wealth Allocation

Author

Listed:
  • Erick Rengifo

    (Fordham University, Department of Economics)

  • Emanuela Trifan

    (J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Department of Economics)

Abstract

We study how the wealth-allocation decisions and the loss aversion of non-professional investors change subject to behavioral factors. The optimal wealth assignment between risky and risk-free assets results within a VaR portfolio model, where risk is individually assessed according to an extended prospect-theory framework. We show how the past performance and the portfolio evaluation frequency impact investor behavior. Myopic loss aversion holds at different evaluation frequencies. One year is the optimal frequency at which, under practical constraints, risky holdings are maximized. Previous research using standard VaR-significance levels may underestimate the loss aversion of individual investors.

Suggested Citation

  • Erick Rengifo & Emanuela Trifan, 2008. "How Investors Face Financial Risk Loss Aversion and Wealth Allocation," Fordham Economics Discussion Paper Series dp2008-01, Fordham University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:frd:wpaper:dp2008-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://archive.fordham.edu/ECONOMICS_RESEARCH/PAPERS/dp2008_01_rengifo_trifan.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2005. "Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 523-534, February.
    3. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    4. Arjan B. Berkelaar & Roy Kouwenberg & Thierry Post, 2004. "Optimal Portfolio Choice under Loss Aversion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 973-987, November.
    5. Basak, Suleyman & Shapiro, Alexander, 2001. "Value-at-Risk-Based Risk Management: Optimal Policies and Asset Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 371-405.
    6. Uri Gneezy & Jan Potters, 1997. "An Experiment on Risk Taking and Evaluation Periods," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 631-645.
    7. 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.
    8. Campbell, Rachel & Huisman, Ronald & Koedijk, Kees, 2001. "Optimal portfolio selection in a Value-at-Risk framework," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(9), pages 1789-1804, September.
    9. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:2:p:821-838 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Philippe Artzner & Freddy Delbaen & Jean‐Marc Eber & David Heath, 1999. "Coherent Measures of Risk," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 203-228, July.
    11. 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.
    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. Rengifo, Erick W. & Trifan, Emanuela, 2006. "Investors Facing Risk: Loss Aversion and Wealth Allocation Between Risky and Risk-Free Assets," Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics 180, Darmstadt University of Technology, Department of Law and Economics.
    2. Rengifo, Erick W. & Trifan, Emanuela, 2007. "Investors Facing Risk: Loss Aversion and Wealth Allocation Between Risky and Risk-Free Assets," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 28063, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    3. 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.
    4. Constantin Mellios & Anh Ngoc Lai, 2022. "Incentive Fees with a Moving Benchmark and Portfolio Selection under Loss Aversion," Post-Print hal-03708926, HAL.
    5. Armstrong, John & Brigo, Damiano, 2019. "Risk managing tail-risk seekers: VaR and expected shortfall vs S-shaped utility," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 122-135.
    6. van Dolder, Dennie & Vandenbroucke, Jurgen, 2024. "Behavioral risk profiling: Measuring loss aversion of individual investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    7. Chen Lian & Yueran Ma & Carmen Wang, 2019. "Low Interest Rates and Risk-Taking: Evidence from Individual Investment Decisions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(6), pages 2107-2148.
    8. 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.
    9. Michael Best & Robert Grauer & Jaroslava Hlouskova & Xili Zhang, 2014. "Loss-Aversion with Kinked Linear Utility Functions," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 44(1), pages 45-65, June.
    10. Kontosakos, Vasileios E. & Hwang, Soosung & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Pantelous, Athanasios A., 2024. "Long-term dynamic asset allocation under asymmetric risk preferences," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 312(2), pages 765-782.
    11. Haim Levy & Moshe Levy, 2021. "Prospect theory, constant relative risk aversion, and the investment horizon," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(4), pages 1-21, April.
    12. Daniel Gottlieb & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2020. "Narrow Framing and Long‐Term Care Insurance," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 87(4), pages 861-893, December.
    13. Mattos, Fabio & Garcia, Philip & Pennings, Joost M.E., 2007. "Insights into Trader Behavior: Risk Aversion and Probability Weighting," 2007 Conference, April 16-17, 2007, Chicago, Illinois 37569, NCCC-134 Conference on Applied Commodity Price Analysis, Forecasting, and Market Risk Management.
    14. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2005. "What is Loss Aversion?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 157-167, January.
    15. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Hilda Kammoun, 2013. "Do financial professionals behave according to prospect theory? An experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 411-429, March.
    16. Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmeling, Maik, 2006. "A prospect-theoretical interpretation of momentum returns," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 360-366, December.
    17. Erick W. Rengifo & Debra Emanuela Trifan & Debra Rossen Trendafilov, 2014. "The Individually Accepted Loss," Fordham Economics Discussion Paper Series dp2014-04, Fordham University, Department of Economics.
    18. Arjen Siegmann & André Lucas, 2002. "Explaining Hedge Fund Investment Styles by Loss Aversion," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-046/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    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. Lucks, Konstantin, 2016. "The Impact of Self-Control on Investment Decisions," MPRA Paper 73099, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:frd:wpaper:dp2008-01. 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: Fordham Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edforus.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.