IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v103y2013i2p1034-53.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inferior Good and Giffen Behavior for Investing and Borrowing

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Kubler
  • Larry Selden
  • Xiao Wei

Abstract

The standard assumption that asset demand increases in income and decreases in price has its origin in Arrow's classic model with one risky and one risk free asset, where both are held long, and preferences exhibit decreasing absolute and increasing relative risk aversion. However if one allows shorting of the risk free asset or decreasing relative risk aversion, the risk free asset can not only fail to be a normal good but can be a Giffen good. This behavior can occur even for members of the popular HARA utility family. More generally, Giffen behavior can occur over multiple income ranges.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Kubler & Larry Selden & Xiao Wei, 2013. "Inferior Good and Giffen Behavior for Investing and Borrowing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 1034-1053, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:103:y:2013:i:2:p:1034-53
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.2.1034
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.103.2.1034
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Saku Aura & Peter Diamond & John Geanakoplos, 2002. "Savings and Portfolio Choice in a Two-Period Two-Asset Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1185-1191, 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. Won, Dong Chul, 2023. "A new approach to the uniqueness of equilibrium with CRRA preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Yakar Kannai & Larry Selden, 2014. "Violation of the Law of Demand," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(1), pages 1-28, January.
    3. Kazuyuki Sasakura, 2021. "Calculating a Giffen Good," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 7(3), pages 349-369, November.
    4. Dong, Xueqi & Liu, Shuo Li, 2021. "Proportional Tax under Ambiguity," MPRA Paper 107668, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Lanier, Joshua, 2020. "Risk, ambiguity, and Giffen assets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    6. Felix Kubler & Larry Selden & Xiao Wei, 2014. "When Is a Risky Asset "Urgently Needed"?," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 131-162, May.
    7. Alexis Akira Toda & Kieran James Walsh, 2017. "Edgeworth box economies with multiple equilibria," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(1), pages 65-80, April.

    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. Antoniadou, Elena & Mirman, Leonard J. & Santugini, Marc, 2016. "The income effect under uncertainty: A Slutsky-like decomposition with risk aversion," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 169-178.
    2. Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman & Scobie, Grant, 2015. "Pensions, savings and housing: A life-cycle framework with policy simulations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 346-357.
    3. Smith, William T. & Zhang, Qiang, 2007. "Asset pricing with multiplicative habit and power-expo preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 319-325, March.
    4. Aj A Bostian & Christoph Heinzel, 2020. "Robustness of Inferences in Risk and Time Experiments to Lifecycle Asset Integration," Post-Print hal-03358620, HAL.
    5. Chaigneau, Pierre, 2013. "Explaining the structure of CEO incentive pay with decreasing relative risk aversion," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 4-23.
    6. Markus Knell, 2010. "The Optimal Mix Between Funded and Unfunded Pension Systems When People Care About Relative Consumption," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(308), pages 710-733, October.
    7. Galasso, Vincenzo & D'Amato, Marcello, 2002. "Aggregate Risk, Political Constraints and Social Security Design," CEPR Discussion Papers 3330, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. repec:onb:oenbwp:y::i:146:b:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Menezes, Carmen F. & Henry Wang, X. & Bigelow, John P., 2005. "Duality and consumption decisions under income and price risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 387-405, April.
    10. Kazuyuki Sasakura, 2019. "Calculating a Giffen Good," Working Papers 1908, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    11. Jack Meyer, 2010. "Representing risk preferences in expected utility based decision models," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 179-190, April.
    12. William T. Smith & Qiang Zhang, 2006. "Asset Pricing With Multiplicative Habit and Power-Expo Preferences (Subsequently published in "Economics Letters", 2007, 94(3), 319-325. )," CARF F-Series CARF-F-070, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    13. AJ A. Bostian & Christoph Heinzel, 2016. "Consumption Smoothing and Precautionary Saving under Recursive Preferences," FOODSECURE Working papers 44, LEI Wageningen UR.
    14. Conniffe, Denis, 2008. "Generalised Means of Simple Utility Functions with Risk Aversion," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-12.
    15. Denis Conniffe, 2007. "The Generalised Extreme Value Distribution as Utility Function," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 38(3), pages 275-288.
    16. Carpentier, Alain & Gohin, Alexandre & Heinzel, Christoph, 2012. "Production Effects of Direct Payments to Active Farmers: a Microeconomic Dynamic and Stochastic Analysis," 123rd Seminar, February 23-24, 2012, Dublin, Ireland 122447, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Donald Meyer & Jack Meyer, 2005. "Relative Risk Aversion: What Do We Know?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 243-262, December.
    18. Post, Thomas & Hanewald, Katja, 2013. "Longevity risk, subjective survival expectations, and individual saving behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 200-220.
    19. Saku Aura, 2004. "Estate and Capital Gains Taxation: Efficiency and Political Economy Consideration," CESifo Working Paper Series 1198, CESifo.
    20. Webb, David C., 2007. "Pension plan funding, risk sharing and technology choice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24641, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Liu, Desu, 2012. "Is relative risk aversion constant? A reinterpretation of recent asset allocation findings at the micro level," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 250-252.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    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:aea:aecrev:v:103:y:2013:i:2:p:1034-53. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.