IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/har/wpaper/9917.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Small Fluctuations in Investors' Subjective Preferences Induce Large Volatility in Equity Prices?

Author

Listed:
  • Rajnish Mehra
  • Raaj Sah

Abstract

This paper focuses on the potential effects of small fluctuations in investors' subjective preferences (specifically, their discount factors and attitudes towards risk) on the volatility of equity prices. We briefly summarize some of the arguments and evidence regarding the fluctuations in subjective preferences. Our analysis indicates that such fluctuations may have significant implications for understanding the volatility of the prices of financial assets. We derive a closed-form expression for equilibrium equity prices, and use this expression to map the fluctuations in investors' subjective preferences to the fluctuations in equity prices. Our analysis suggests that small fluctuations in the discount factor have potentially large effects on the latter. For example, if the standard deviation of the fluctuations in the discount factor is of the order of 1/10th of one percent, then this by itself can induce a 3 to 4% standard deviation in the fluctuations in equity prices. The fluctuations in the attitude towards risk have a smaller, but nevertheless non-negligible effect. We present the intuition underlying our conclusions.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajnish Mehra & Raaj Sah, 1999. "Can Small Fluctuations in Investors' Subjective Preferences Induce Large Volatility in Equity Prices?," Working Papers 9917, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    • Handle: RePEc:har:wpaper:9917
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://harrisschool.uchicago.edu/about/publications/working-papers/pdf/wp_99_17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    2. George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2003. "Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1209-1248.
    3. Gary S. Becker & Casey B. Mulligan, 1997. "The Endogenous Determination of Time Preference," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 729-758.
    4. Saunders, Edward M, Jr, 1993. "Stock Prices and Wall Street Weather," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1337-1345, December.
    5. Loewenstein, George & Adler, Daniel, 1995. "A Bias in the Prediction of Tastes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(431), pages 929-937, July.
    6. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    7. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    8. Robert B. Barsky & F. Thomas Juster & Miles S. Kimball & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1997. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 537-579.
    9. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    10. Black, Fischer, 1986. "Noise," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 529-543, July.
    11. George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2003. "Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1209-1248.
    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. Shu, Hui-Chu, 2010. "Investor mood and financial markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 267-282, November.
    2. Stracca, Livio, 2004. "Behavioral finance and asset prices: Where do we stand?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 373-405, June.
    3. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    4. Botond Koszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2007. "Reference-Dependent Risk Attitudes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1047-1073, September.
    5. Takashi Hayashi & Norio Takeoka, 2022. "Habit formation, self-deception, and self-control," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(2), pages 547-592, September.
    6. Brian M. Lucey & Michael Dowling, 2005. "The Role of Feelings in Investor Decision‐Making," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 211-237, April.
    7. Samahita, Margaret & Holm, Håkan J., 2020. "Mining for Mood Effect in the Field," Working Papers 2020:2, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    8. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    9. Welsch, Heinz & Ferreira, Susana, 2014. "Environment, Well-Being, and Experienced Preference," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 7(3-4), pages 205-239, December.
    10. John Stachurski, 2009. "Economic Dynamics: Theory and Computation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012774, December.
    11. Campbell, John Y. & Nosbusch, Yves, 2007. "Intergenerational risksharing and equilibrium asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2251-2268, November.
    12. Robert Barro, 2023. "r Minus g," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 48, pages 1-17, April.
    13. Hendricks, Lutz, 2007. "How important is discount rate heterogeneity for wealth inequality?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 3042-3068, September.
    14. Meyer, Donald J. & Meyer, Jack, 2005. "Risk preferences in multi-period consumption models, the equity premium puzzle, and habit formation utility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1497-1515, November.
    15. Alpaslan Akay & Olivier B. Bargain & H. Xavier Jara, 2023. "Experienced versus decision utility: large‐scale comparison for income–leisure preferences," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 125(4), pages 823-859, October.
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8686 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Athreya, Kartik B., 2014. "Big Ideas in Macroeconomics: A Nontechnical View," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262019736, December.
    18. Leland Farmer & Roger Farmer, 2022. "Zoomers and Boomers: Asset Prices and Intergenerational Inequality," NBER Working Papers 30419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Maria Alessandra Antonelli & Valeria De Bonis & Angelo Castaldo & Alessandrao Gandolfo, 2022. "Sin goods taxation: an encompassing model," Public Finance Research Papers 52, Istituto di Economia e Finanza, DSGE, Sapienza University of Rome.
    20. Dominique Pépin, 2015. "Intertemporal Substitutability, Risk aversion and Asset Prices," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(4), pages 2233-2241.
    21. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.

    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:har:wpaper:9917. 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: Eleanor Cartelli The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Eleanor Cartelli to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/spuchus.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.