IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13896.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Wealth-Consumption Ratio

Author

Listed:
  • Hanno Lustig
  • Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh
  • Adrien Verdelhan

Abstract

We set up an exponentially affine stochastic discount factor model for bond yields and stock returns in order to estimate the prices of aggregate risk. We use the estimated risk prices to compute the no-arbitrage price of a claim to aggregate consumption. The price-dividend ratio of this claim is the wealth-consumption ratio. Our estimates indicate that total wealth is much safer than stock market wealth. The consumption risk premium is only 2.2 percent, substantially below the equity risk premium of 6.9 percent. As a result, the average US household has more wealth than one might think; most of it is human wealth. A large fraction of the variation in total wealth can be traced back to changes in long-term real interest rates. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that events in bond markets, not stock markets, matter most for understanding fluctuations in total wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Adrien Verdelhan, 2008. "The Wealth-Consumption Ratio," NBER Working Papers 13896, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13896
    Note: AP EFG IFM ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13896.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Lettau & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2008. "Reconciling the Return Predictability Evidence," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1607-1652, July.
    2. Constantinides, George M & Duffie, Darrell, 1996. "Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Consumers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 219-240, April.
    3. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 2001. "Should Central Banks Respond to Movements in Asset Prices?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 253-257, May.
    4. Robert E. Hall, 2001. "The Stock Market and Capital Accumulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1185-1202, December.
    5. Abel, Andrew B, 1990. "Asset Prices under Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 38-42, May.
    6. Jagannathan, Ravi & Wang, Zhenyu, 1996. "The Conditional CAPM and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 3-53, March.
    7. Matthias Fleckenstein & Francis A. Longstaff & Hanno Lustig, 2010. "Why Does the Treasury Issue Tips? The Tips-Treasury Bond Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 16358, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. John H. Cochrane & Jesus Saa-Requejo, 2000. "Beyond Arbitrage: Good-Deal Asset Price Bounds in Incomplete Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 79-119, February.
    9. Deborah Lucas, 2010. "Measuring and Managing Federal Financial Risk," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number luca07-1.
    10. Campbell, John Y, 1991. "A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 157-179, March.
    11. Andrew Ang & Geert Bekaert & Min Wei, 2008. "The Term Structure of Real Rates and Expected Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 797-849, April.
    12. 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.
    13. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Bekaert, Geert & Engstrom, Eric & Grenadier, Steven R., 2010. "Stock and bond returns with Moody Investors," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 867-894, December.
    15. John H. Cochrane & Monika Piazzesi, 2005. "Bond Risk Premia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 138-160, March.
    16. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228.
    17. Bekaert, Geert & Engstrom, Eric & Xing, Yuhang, 2009. "Risk, uncertainty, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 59-82, January.
    18. Harold L. Cole & Hanno & YiLi Chien, 2007. "Macro Implications of Household Finance," 2007 Meeting Papers 479, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Adrien Verdelhan, 2010. "A Habit‐Based Explanation of the Exchange Rate Risk Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(1), pages 123-146, February.
    20. Martin Lettau & Sydney Ludvigson, 2001. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth, and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 815-849, June.
    21. Ravi Bansal & Dana Kiku & Ivan Shaliastovich & Amir Yaron, 2014. "Volatility, the Macroeconomy, and Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(6), pages 2471-2511, December.
    22. Monika Piazzesi & Martin Schneider, 2007. "Equilibrium Yield Curves," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2006, Volume 21, pages 389-472, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Fernando Alvarez & Urban J. Jermann, 2004. "Using Asset Prices to Measure the Cost of Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(6), pages 1223-1256, December.
    24. Robert Novy‐Marx & Joshua Rauh, 2011. "Public Pension Promises: How Big Are They and What Are They Worth?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(4), pages 1211-1249, August.
    25. Duffie, Darrell & Epstein, Larry G, 1992. "Stochastic Differential Utility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 353-394, March.
    26. Lettau, Martin & Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2005. "Expected returns and expected dividend growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 583-626, June.
    27. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    28. Shiller, Robert J., 1995. "Aggregate income risks and hedging mechanisms," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 119-152.
    29. Ravi Bansal & A. Ronald Gallant & George Tauchen, 2007. "Rational Pessimism, Rational Exuberance, and Asset Pricing Models," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(4), pages 1005-1033.
    30. Qiang Dai & Kenneth J. Singleton, 2000. "Specification Analysis of Affine Term Structure Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(5), pages 1943-1978, October.
    31. Breeden, Douglas T., 1979. "An intertemporal asset pricing model with stochastic consumption and investment opportunities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 265-296, September.
    32. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika, 2003. "A no-arbitrage vector autoregression of term structure dynamics with macroeconomic and latent variables," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 745-787, May.
    33. Lior Menzly & Tano Santos & Pietro Veronesi, 2004. "Understanding Predictability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(1), pages 1-47, February.
    34. Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2008. "The Returns on Human Capital: Good News on Wall Street is Bad News on Main Street," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(5), pages 2097-2137, September.
    35. Ian W. Martin, 2013. "Consumption-Based Asset Pricing with Higher Cumulants," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 745-773.
    36. Jacob Boudoukh & Roni Michaely & Matthew Richardson & Michael R. Roberts, 2007. "On the Importance of Measuring Payout Yield: Implications for Empirical Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 877-915, April.
    37. John Geanokoplos & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2010. "Market Valuation of Accrued Social Security Benefits," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Managing Federal Financial Risk, pages 213-233, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. James M. Poterba, 2000. "Stock Market Wealth and Consumption," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 99-118, Spring.
    39. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2005. "Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle in the Presence of 'Trickle Down' Labor Income," NBER Working Papers 11247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Tano Santos & Pietro Veronesi, 2006. "Labor Income and Predictable Stock Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(1), pages 1-44.
    41. Ang, Andrew & Liu, Jun, 2007. "Risk, return, and dividends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 1-38, July.
    42. Campbell, John Y. & Sunderam, Adi & Viceira, Luis M., 2017. "Inflation Bets or Deflation Hedges? The Changing Risks of Nominal Bonds," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 6(2), pages 263-301, September.
    43. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika & Wei, Min, 2006. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 359-403.
    44. Ferson, Wayne E & Harvey, Campbell R, 1991. "The Variation of Economic Risk Premiums," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 385-415, April.
    45. Lettau, Martin & Wachter, Jessica A., 2011. "The term structures of equity and interest rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 90-113, July.
    46. Jonathan A. Parker & Christian Julliard, 2005. "Consumption Risk and the Cross Section of Expected Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 185-222, February.
    47. JULES H. Van BINSBERGEN & RALPH S. J. KOIJEN, 2010. "Predictive Regressions: A Present‐Value Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(4), pages 1439-1471, August.
    48. Lucas, Deborah (ed.), 2010. "Measuring and Managing Federal Financial Risk," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226496580.
    49. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Robotti, Cesare, 2010. "Asset pricing models and economic risk premia: A decomposition," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 54-80, January.
    50. Sydney C. Ludvigson & Charles Steindel, 1999. "How important is the stock market effect on consumption?," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 5(Jul), pages 29-51.
    51. 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.
    52. Geert Bekaert & Steven R. Grenadier, 1999. "Stock and Bond Pricing in an Affine Economy," NBER Working Papers 7346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    53. Georg Kaltenbrunner & Lars A. Lochstoer, 2010. "Long-Run Risk through Consumption Smoothing," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(8), pages 3190-3224, August.
    54. Riccardo Colacito & Mariano M. Croce, 2011. "Risks for the Long Run and the Real Exchange Rate," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 153-181.
    55. Ravi Bansal & Robert F. Dittmar & Christian T. Lundblad, 2005. "Consumption, Dividends, and the Cross Section of Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1639-1672, August.
    56. De Jong, Frank, 2008. "Valuation of pension liabilities in incomplete markets," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 277-294, November.
    57. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    58. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    59. Ravi Bansal & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Risks for the Long Run: A Potential Resolution of Asset Pricing Puzzles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1481-1509, August.
    60. Harvey, Campbell R., 1988. "The real term structure and consumption growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 305-333, December.
    61. Bart Hobijn & Boyan Jovanovic, 2001. "The Information-Technology Revolution and the Stock Market: Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1203-1220, December.
    62. Christopher J. Malloy, 2005. "The Geography of Equity Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 719-755, April.
    63. Wachter, Jessica A., 2005. "Solving models with external habit," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 210-226, December.
    64. Antonio E. Bernardo & Olivier Ledoit, 2000. "Gain, Loss, and Asset Pricing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(1), pages 144-172, February.
    65. Dale Jorgenson & Barbara M. Fraumeni, 1989. "The Accumulation of Human and Nonhuman Capital, 1948-84," NBER Chapters, in: The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth, pages 227-286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    66. Kreps, David M & Porteus, Evan L, 1978. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 185-200, January.
    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. Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2013. "Advances in Consumption-Based Asset Pricing: Empirical Tests," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 799-906, Elsevier.
    2. George M. Constantinides & Anisha Ghosh, 2011. "Asset Pricing Tests with Long-run Risks in Consumption Growth," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 96-136.
    3. Hanno Lustig, "undated". "The Wealth-Consumption Ratio: A Litmus Test for Consumption-based Asset Pricing Models," UCLA Economics Online Papers 420, UCLA Department of Economics.
    4. Koijen, Ralph S.J. & Lustig, Hanno & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2017. "The cross-section and time series of stock and bond returns," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 50-69.
    5. Cochrane, John H., 2005. "Financial Markets and the Real Economy," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 1-101, July.
    6. Grishchenko, Olesya V., 2010. "Internal vs. external habit formation: The relative importance for asset pricing," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 176-194, May.
    7. Møller, Stig Vinther, 2009. "Habit persistence: Explaining cross-sectional variation in returns and time-varying expected returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 525-536, September.
    8. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    9. 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.
    10. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Hanno Lustig & Ralph S.J. Koijen, 2009. "The Bond Risk Premium and the Cross-Section of Equity Returns," 2009 Meeting Papers 12, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Bekaert, Geert & Engstrom, Eric & Grenadier, Steven R., 2010. "Stock and bond returns with Moody Investors," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 867-894, December.
    12. Bekaert, Geert & Engstrom, Eric & Xing, Yuhang, 2009. "Risk, uncertainty, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 59-82, January.
    13. Lettau, Martin & Wachter, Jessica A., 2011. "The term structures of equity and interest rates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 90-113, July.
    14. Roussanov, Nikolai, 2014. "Composition of wealth, conditioning information, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 352-380.
    15. Li, Minqiang, 2010. "Asset Pricing - A Brief Review," MPRA Paper 22379, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Qi Liu & Libin Tao & Weixing Wu & Jianfeng Yu, 2017. "Short- and Long-Run Business Conditions and Expected Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4137-4157, December.
    17. Ricardo Sousa, 2011. "Building proxies that capture time-variation in expected returns using a VAR approach," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 147-163.
    18. Sydney Ludvigson, 2008. "The Research Agenda: Sydney Ludvigson on Empirical Evaluation of Economic Theories of Risk Premia," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(2), April.
    19. Xiaohong Chen & Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2009. "Land of addicts? an empirical investigation of habit-based asset pricing models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(7), pages 1057-1093.
    20. John H. Cochrane, 2011. "Discount Rates," NBER Working Papers 16972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:nbr:nberwo:13896. 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: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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: (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.