IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sfi/sfiwpa/500028.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Herd behavior and aggregate fluctuations in financial markets

Author

Listed:
  • Rama Cont

    (Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management)

  • Jean-Philippe Bouchaud

    (Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management
    CEA Saclay;)

Abstract

We present a simple model of a stock market where a random communication structure between agents gives rise to a heavy tails in the distribution of stock price variations in the form of an exponentially truncated power-law, similar to distributions observed in recent empirical studies of high frequency market data. Our model provides a link between two well-known market phenomena: the heavy tails observed in the distribution of stock market returns on one hand and 'herding' behavior in financial markets on the other hand. In particular, our study suggests a relation between the excess kurtosis observed in asset returns, the market order flow and the tendency of market participants to imitate each other.

Suggested Citation

  • Rama Cont & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 1997. "Herd behavior and aggregate fluctuations in financial markets," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 500028, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:sfi:sfiwpa:500028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bak, Per & Chen, Kan & Scheinkman, Jose & Woodford, Michael, 1993. "Aggregate fluctuations from independent sectoral shocks: self-organized criticality in a model of production and inventory dynamics," Ricerche Economiche, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 3-30, March.
    2. Trueman, Brett, 1994. "Analyst Forecasts and Herding Behavior," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(1), pages 97-124.
    3. Bak, P. & Paczuski, M. & Shubik, M., 1997. "Price variations in a stock market with many agents," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 246(3), pages 430-453.
    4. Pagan, Adrian, 1996. "The econometrics of financial markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 15-102, May.
    5. Alan Kirman, 1999. "Interaction and markets," Chapters, in: Mauro Gallegati & Alan Kirman (ed.), Beyond the Representative Agent, chapter 1, pages 1-44, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Orlean, Andre, 1995. "Bayesian interactions and collective dynamics of opinion: Herd behavior and mimetic contagion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 257-274, October.
    7. Kirman, Alan P & Oddou, Claude & Weber, Shlomo, 1986. "Stochastic Communication and Coalition Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(1), pages 129-138, January.
    8. Hsieh, David A, 1991. "Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics: Application to Financial Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(5), pages 1839-1877, December.
    9. Levy, Moshe & Solomon, Sorin, 1997. "New evidence for the power-law distribution of wealth," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 242(1), pages 90-94.
    10. Rama Cont & Marc Potters & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 1997. "Scaling in stock market data: stable laws and beyond," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 9705087, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    11. Engle, Robert F. (ed.), 1995. "ARCH: Selected Readings," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774327.
    12. Welch, Ivo, 2000. "Herding among security analysts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 369-396, December.
    13. Richard B. Olsen & Ulrich A. Müller & Michel M. Dacorogna & Olivier V. Pictet & Rakhal R. Davé & Dominique M. Guillaume, 1997. "From the bird's eye to the microscope: A survey of new stylized facts of the intra-daily foreign exchange markets (*)," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 95-129.
    14. Kirman, Alan P., 1983. "Communication in markets : A suggested approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 101-108.
    15. Clark, Peter K, 1973. "A Subordinated Stochastic Process Model with Finite Variance for Speculative Prices," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(1), pages 135-155, January.
    16. Muller, Ulrich A. & Dacorogna, Michel M. & Olsen, Richard B. & Pictet, Olivier V. & Schwarz, Matthias & Morgenegg, Claude, 1990. "Statistical study of foreign exchange rates, empirical evidence of a price change scaling law, and intraday analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 1189-1208, December.
    17. Bollerslev, Tim & Chou, Ray Y. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1992. "ARCH modeling in finance : A review of the theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 5-59.
    18. Yannis M. Ioannides, 1996. "Evolution of Trading Structures," Working Papers 96-04-020, Santa Fe Institute.
    19. G. Caldarelli & M. Marsili & Y. -C. Zhang, 1997. "A Prototype Model of Stock Exchange," Papers cond-mat/9709118, arXiv.org.
    20. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    21. Topol, Richard, 1991. "Bubbles and Volatility of Stock Prices: Effect of Mimetic Contagion," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 786-800, July.
    22. Benoit Mandelbrot, 2015. "The Variation of Certain Speculative Prices," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 3, pages 39-78, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    23. Engle, Robert F & Gonzalez-Rivera, Gloria, 1991. "Semiparametric ARCH Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(4), pages 345-359, October.
    24. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Hirshleifer, David & Welch, Ivo, 1992. "A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change in Informational Cascades," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 992-1026, October.
    25. Grinblatt, Mark & Titman, Sheridan & Wermers, Russ, 1995. "Momentum Investment Strategies, Portfolio Performance, and Herding: A Study of Mutual Fund Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1088-1105, December.
    26. David H. Cutler & James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "What Moves Stock Prices?," Working papers 487, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    27. Ionnides, Yannis M, 1990. "Trading Uncertainty and Market Form," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(3), pages 619-638, August.
    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. Rama CONT & Jean-Philippe BOUCHAUD, 1997. "Herd behavior and aggregate fluctuations in financial markets," Finance 9712008, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Jan 1998.
    2. Rama Cont & Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 1997. "Herd behavior and aggregate fluctuations in financial markets," Papers cond-mat/9712318, arXiv.org, revised Jan 1998.
    3. Iori, Giulia, 2002. "A microsimulation of traders activity in the stock market: the role of heterogeneity, agents' interactions and trade frictions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 269-285, October.
    4. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034.
    5. A. Corcos & J-P Eckmann & A. Malaspinas & Y. Malevergne & D. Sornette, 2002. "Imitation and contrarian behaviour: hyperbolic bubbles, crashes and chaos," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(4), pages 264-281.
    6. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Francis X. Diebold & Paul Labys, 1999. "The Distribution of Exchange Rate Volatility," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 99-059, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    7. Stanley, H.E. & Gopikrishnan, P. & Plerou, V. & Amaral, L.A.N., 2000. "Quantifying fluctuations in economic systems by adapting methods of statistical physics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 287(3), pages 339-361.
    8. Alessio Emanuele Biondo, 2020. "Information versus imitation in a real-time agent-based model of financial markets," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 15(3), pages 613-631, July.
    9. Pegah Dehghani & Ros Zam Zam Sapian, 2014. "Sectoral herding behavior in the aftermarket of Malaysian IPOs," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 227-246, July.
    10. Puput Tri Komalasari & Marwan Asri & Bernardinus M. Purwanto & Bowo Setiyono, 2022. "Herding behaviour in the capital market: What do we know and what is next?," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(3), pages 745-787, September.
    11. Tim Bollerslev, 2008. "Glossary to ARCH (GARCH)," CREATES Research Papers 2008-49, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    12. Yang, J-H.S. & Satchell, S.E., 2003. "Endogenous Correlation," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0321, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    13. N Blasco & P Corredor & S Ferreruela, 2011. "Detecting intentional herding: what lies beneath intraday data in the Spanish stock market," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1056-1066, June.
    14. J. Doyne Farmer & John Geanakoplos, 2008. "The virtues and vices of equilibrium and the future of financial economics," Papers 0803.2996, arXiv.org.
    15. LeBaron, Blake, 2003. "Non-Linear Time Series Models in Empirical Finance,: Philip Hans Franses and Dick van Dijk, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000, 296 pp., Paperback, ISBN 0-521-77965-0, $33, [UK pound]22.95, [," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 751-752.
    16. Makoto Nirei & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2014. "Beauty Contests and Fat Tails in Financial Markets," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 024, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    17. Franses,Philip Hans & Dijk,Dick van, 2000. "Non-Linear Time Series Models in Empirical Finance," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521779654.
    18. Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2008. "Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets," MPRA Paper 9164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Gabaix, Xavier & Gopikrishnan, Parameswaran & Plerou, Vasiliki & Eugene Stanley, H., 2008. "Quantifying and understanding the economics of large financial movements," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 303-319, January.
    20. Bollerslev, Tim & Engle, Robert F. & Nelson, Daniel B., 1986. "Arch models," Handbook of Econometrics, in: R. F. Engle & D. McFadden (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 49, pages 2959-3038, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:sfi:sfiwpa:500028. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/scfinfr.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.