IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/1154.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Significance of the Market Portfolio

Author

Abstract

The market portfolio (world portfolio) is in one sense a least important portfolio to provide to investors; there is always a better portfolio for social planners to make available to them. In a J-agent one-period stochastic endowment economy, where preferences are quadratic, the market portfolio is never spanned by the optimal markets a social planner would create. With identical preferences, the market portfolio is orthogonal to all J - 1 portfolios which achieve a first best solution. These conclusions rely on the assumption that the social planner has perfect information about agents' utilities. We also show that as the contract designer's information about agents' utilities becomes more imperfect, the optimal contracts approach contracts that weight individual endowments in proportion to elements of eigenvectors of the variance matrix of endowments. If there is a substantial market component to endowments than a social planner, for reasons of robustness and simplicity, may conclude that creating a contract to allow trading the market portfolio would be a significant innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano G. Athanasoulis & Robert J. Shiller, 1997. "The Significance of the Market Portfolio," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1154, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
  • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1154
    Note: CFP 997.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d11/d1154.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duffie Darrell & Rahi Rohit, 1995. "Financial Market Innovation and Security Design: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-42, February.
    2. Cass, David & Chichilnisky, Graciela & Wu, Ho-Mou, 1996. "Individual Risk and Mutual Insurance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(2), pages 333-341, March.
    3. Magill, Michael & Shafer, Wayne, 1991. "Incomplete markets," Handbook of Mathematical Economics, in: W. Hildenbrand & H. Sonnenschein (ed.), Handbook of Mathematical Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 30, pages 1523-1614, Elsevier.
    4. Demange Gabrielle & Laroque Guy, 1995. "Optimality of Incomplete Markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 218-232, February.
    5. Geanakoplos, John, 1990. "An introduction to general equilibrium with incomplete asset markets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 1-38.
    6. Gyutaeg Oh, 1996. "Some Results in the CAPM with Nontraded Endowments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(2), pages 286-293, February.
    7. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Athanasoulis, S. & Shiller, R.J., 1995. "World Income Components: Measuring and Exploting International Risk Sharing Opportunities," Papers 725, Yale - Economic Growth Center.
    2. G. Glenn Baigent & William Acar, 2015. "On the economic significance of the benchmark portfolio," Journal of Economic and Financial Studies (JEFS), LAR Center Press, vol. 3(6), pages 16-25, December.
    3. Calvet, Laurent & Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Sodini, Paolo, 2004. "Financial Innovation, Market Participation, and Asset Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 431-459, September.
    4. Shawn Cole & Xavier Gine & Jeremy Tobacman & Petia Topalova & Robert Townsend & James Vickery, 2013. "Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 104-135, January.
    5. Miklós Koren, 2003. "Financial Globalization, Portfolio Diversification, and the Pattern of International Trade," IMF Working Papers 2003/233, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Mark J. Kamstra & Robert J. Shiller, 2009. "The Case for Trills: Giving the People and Their Pension Funds a Stake in the Wealth of the Nation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1717, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    7. Maria Giduskova & Borja Larrain, 2006. "International risk-taking, volatility, and consumption growth," Communities and Banking, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    8. Bisin, Alberto & Acharya, Viral, 2002. "Entrepreneurial Incentives in Stock Market Economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 3474, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Mark J. Kamstra & Robert J. Shiller, 2009. "The Case for Trills: Giving the People and Their Pension Funds a Stake in the Wealth of the Nation," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1717, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    10. Bossaerts, Peter & Fine, Leslie & Ledyard, John, 2002. "Inducing liquidity in thin financial markets through combined-value trading mechanisms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(9), pages 1671-1695, October.
    11. Meryem Masmoudi & Fouad Ben Abdelaziz, 2018. "Portfolio selection problem: a review of deterministic and stochastic multiple objective programming models," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 267(1), pages 335-352, August.
    12. Viral V. Acharya & Alberto Bisin, 2005. "Optimal Financial-Market Integration and Security Design," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2397-2434, November.
    13. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Social security and institutions for intergenerational, intragenerational, and international risk-sharing," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 165-204, June.
    14. Robert J. Shiller, 1997. "Expanding the Scope of Individual Risk Management: Moral Hazard and Other Behavioral Considerations," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1145, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    15. Athanasoulis, Stefano G. & Shiller, Robert J., 2002. "Defining residual risk-sharing opportunities: Pooling world income components," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 61-84, June.
    16. Rampini, Adriano A. & Viswanathan, S., 2018. "Financing Insurance," CEPR Discussion Papers 12855, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Stefano G. Athanasoulis & Robert J. Shiller, 2001. "World Income Components: Measuring and Exploiting Risk-Sharing Opportunities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1031-1054, September.
    18. Graham, Liam & Wright, Stephen, 2010. "Information, heterogeneity and market incompleteness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 164-174, March.

    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. Robert J. Shiller & Stefano Athanasoulis, 1995. "World Income Components: Measuring and Exploiting International Risk Sharing Opportunities," NBER Working Papers 5095, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Duffie, Darrell, 2003. "Intertemporal asset pricing theory," 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 11, pages 639-742, Elsevier.
    3. Calvet, Laurent & Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Sodini, Paolo, 2004. "Financial Innovation, Market Participation, and Asset Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 431-459, September.
    4. Bisin, Alberto & Gottardi, Piero, 1999. "Competitive Equilibria with Asymmetric Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 1-48, July.
    5. Marta Faias, 2004. "General equilibrium and endogenous creation of asset markets," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp454, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    6. P. Herings & Felix Kubler, 2007. "Approximate CAPM When Preferences are CRRA," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 13-31, February.
    7. Yue Ma, 2008. "Incomplete financial market and the sequence of international trade liberalization," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 108-117.
    8. Viral V. Acharya & Alberto Bisin, 2005. "Optimal Financial-Market Integration and Security Design," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(6), pages 2397-2434, November.
    9. Borglin, Anders & Flåm, Sjur, 2007. "Risk Exchange as a Market or Production Game," Working Papers 2007:16, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    10. Jacco Thijssen, 2008. "A computational study on general equilibrium pricing of derivative securities," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 505-523, October.
    11. Jacques H. Drèze & Oussama Lachiri & Enrico Minelli, 2007. "Shareholder-efficient production plans in a multi-period economy," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne b07065, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    12. Tirelli, Mario, 2008. "Constrained inefficiency in GEI: A geometric argument," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(11), pages 1197-1214, December.
    13. Schmedders, Karl, 1998. "Computing equilibria in the general equilibrium model with incomplete asset markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1375-1401, August.
    14. Charalambos Aliprantis & Rabee Tourky, 2009. "Equilibria in incomplete assets economies with infinite dimensional spot markets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(2), pages 221-262, February.
    15. Jürgen Eichberger & Klaus Rheinberger & Martin Summer, 2014. "Credit risk in general equilibrium," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(2), pages 407-435, October.
    16. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    17. Paul S. Willen, 2004. "Incomplete markets and trade," Working Papers 04-8, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    18. Jacques Drèze & Enrico Minelli & Mario Tirelli, 2008. "Production and financial policies under asymmetric information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 35(2), pages 217-231, May.
    19. P. Herings & Karl Schmedders, 2006. "Computing equilibria in finance economies with incomplete markets and transaction costs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 27(3), pages 493-512, April.
    20. Zhou, Yuqing, 1997. "The structure of the pseudo-equilibrium manifold in economies with incomplete markets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 91-111, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:cwl:cwldpp:1154. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.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.