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International asset allocation under regime switching, skew and kurtosis preferences

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Massimo Guidolin
Allan Timmerman

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Abstract

This paper proposes a new tractable approach to solving asset allocation problems in situations with a large number of risky assets which pose problems for standard approaches. Investor preferences are assumed to be defined over moments of the wealth distribution such as its mean, variance, skew and kurtosis. Time-variations in investment opportunities are represented by a flexible regime switching process. In the context of a four-moment international CAPM specification that relates stock returns in five regions to returns on a global market portfolio, we find evidence of distinct bull and bear states. Ignoring regimes, an unhedged US investor’s optimal portfolio is strongly diversified internationally. The presence of regimes in the return distribution leads to a large increase in the investor’s optimal holdings of US stocks as does the introduction of skew and kurtosis preferences. Our paper therefore offers an explanation of the strong home bias observed in US investors’ asset allocation based on regime switching and skew and kurtosis preferences.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in its series Working Papers with number 2005-034.

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Date of creation: 2006
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2005-034

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Keywords: Investments ; Asset pricing ; International finance;

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Philippe Lambert & Sébastien Laurent, 2008. "Testing Conditional Dynamics in Asymmetry. A Residual-Based Approach," ECARES Working Papers 2008_009, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Ecares. [Downloadable!]
  2. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2007. "Portfolio choice over the life-cycle when the stock and labor markets are cointegrated," Working Paper Series WP-07-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  3. Massimo Guidolin & Stuart Hyde, 2008. "Equity portfolio diversification under time-varying predictability and comovements: evidence from Ireland, the US, and the UK," Working Papers 2008-005, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
  4. John M Maheu & Thomas H McCurdy & Yong Song, 2009. "Extracting bull and bear markets from stock returns," Working Papers tecipa-369, University of Toronto, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Fousseni Chabi-Yo & Eric Ghysels & Eric Renault, 2008. "On Portfolio Separation Theorems with Heterogeneous Beliefs and Attitudes towards Risk," Working Papers 08-16, Bank of Canada. [Downloadable!]
  6. Massimo Guidolin & Stuart Hyde, 2007. "What tames the Celtic tiger? portfolio implications from a multivariate Markov switching model," Working Papers 2006-029, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Massimo Guidolin & Stuart Hyde & David McMillan & Sadayuki Ono, 2009. "Non-linear predictability in stock and bond returns: when and where is it exploitable?," Working Papers 2008-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Chollete, Lorán & Heinen, Andréas & Valdesogo, Alfonso, 2008. "Modeling International Financial Returns with a Multivariate Regime Switching Copula," Discussion Papers 2008/3, Department of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Massimo Guidolin & Giovanna Nicodano, 2007. "Small caps in international equity portfolios: the effects of variance risk," Working Papers 2005-075, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Renee Fry & Vance L. Martin & Chrismin Tang, 2008. "A New Class Of Tests Of Contagion With Applications To Real Estate Markets," CAMA Working Papers 2008-01, Australian National University, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis. [Downloadable!]
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