IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v77y2002i1p27-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal saving rules for loss-averse agents under uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Siegmann, Arjen

Abstract

Most empirical studies assume only monotonic preferences for households. Behavioral research however providessubstantial evidence that preferences for wealth are measured relative to a reference point. In this paper weintroduce and solve a two-period consumption and savings model for a loss-averse agent who measures utilityfrom consumption relative to a benchmark level. The solution is given as a parametric decision rule with oneunknown parameter that depends on the distribution of the return on saving. We find non-linearity in the fractionof wealth saved, where the specific saving pattern depends on the sign of the real return on savings. The amount of saving is nondecreasing in initial wealth and the riskiness of the return distribution.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Siegmann, Arjen, 2002. "Optimal saving rules for loss-averse agents under uncertainty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 27-34, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:77:y:2002:i:1:p:27-34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165-1765(02)00113-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Browning & Annamaria Lusardi, 1996. "Household Saving: Micro Theories and Micro Facts," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1797-1855, December.
    2. Caballero, Ricardo J., 1990. "Consumption puzzles and precautionary savings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 113-136, January.
    3. Aizenman, Joshua, 1998. "Buffer stocks and precautionary savings with loss aversion," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 931-947, December.
    4. Bowman, David & Minehart, Deborah & Rabin, Matthew, 1999. "Loss aversion in a consumption-savings model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 155-178, February.
    5. Normandin, Michel, 1994. "Precautionary Saving: An Explanation for Excess Sensitivity of Consumption," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(2), pages 205-219, April.
    6. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    7. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Christopher D. Carroll & Andrew A. Samwick, 1998. "How Important Is Precautionary Saving?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 410-419, August.
    9. Michel Normandin, 1997. "Precautionary saving and the Deaton paradox," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 187-190.
    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. Marcela Ibanez & Sebastian O. Schneider, 2023. "Income Risk, Precautionary Saving, and Loss Aversion – An Empirical Test," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2023_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    2. Horst Zank, 2007. "On the Paradigm of Loss Aversion," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0710, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    3. Park Hyeon, 2016. "Loss Aversion and Consumption Plans with Stochastic Reference Points," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 303-336, January.
    4. Sanjit Dhami & Narges Hajimoladarvish & Konstantinos Georgalos, 2023. "Precautionary Savings, Loss Aversion, and Risk: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10570, CESifo.
    5. Bonilla, Claudio A. & Fica, Diego, 2022. "Loss aversion and risky entrepreneurship," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    6. Horst Zank, 2010. "On probabilities and loss aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 243-261, 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. Sanjit Dhami & Narges Hajimoladarvish & Konstantinos Georgalos, 2023. "Precautionary Savings, Loss Aversion, and Risk: Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10570, CESifo.
    2. Marcela Ibanez & Sebastian O. Schneider, 2023. "Income Risk, Precautionary Saving, and Loss Aversion – An Empirical Test," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2023_06, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    3. Alexander L. Brown & Zhikang Eric Chua & Colin F. Camerer, 2009. "Learning and Visceral Temptation in Dynamic Saving Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 197-231.
    4. Johansson, Martin W, 2002. "Reexamining loss aversion in aggregate consumption - Swedish and international evidence," Working Papers 2002:2, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    5. Hwang, In Do, 2024. "Behavioral aspects of household portfolio choice: Effects of loss aversion on life insurance uptake and savings," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PA), pages 1029-1053.
    6. Huffman, David B. & Barenstein, Matias, 2004. "Riches to Rags Every Month? The Fall in Consumption Expenditures Between Paydays," IZA Discussion Papers 1430, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Manuchehr Irandoust, 2017. "Saving behaviour under terms-of-trade uncertainty: evidence from hidden cointegration approach," Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 135-150, May.
    8. Horst Zank, 2010. "On probabilities and loss aversion," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 243-261, March.
    9. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    10. repec:idn:jimfjn:v:4:y:2018:i:1f:p:1-16 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Schunk, Daniel, 2009. "Behavioral heterogeneity in dynamic search situations: Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1719-1738, September.
    12. Edoardo GAFFEO & Ivan PETRELLA & Damjan PFAJFAR & Emiliano SANTORO, 2010. "Reference-dependent preferences and the transmission of monetary policy," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces10.28, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    13. Binswanger, Johannes, 2012. "Life cycle saving: Insights from the perspective of bounded rationality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 605-623.
    14. Bowman, David & Minehart, Deborah & Rabin, Matthew, 1999. "Loss aversion in a consumption-savings model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 155-178, February.
    15. Chou, Shin-Yi & Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K., 2003. "National Health Insurance and precautionary saving: evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 1873-1894, September.
    16. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten & Meyer, Steffen & Hackethal, Andreas, 2019. "Taming models of prospect theory in the wild? Estimation of Vlcek and Hens (2011)," SAFE Working Paper Series 146, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    17. Meghir, Costas & Pistaferri, Luigi, 2011. "Earnings, Consumption and Life Cycle Choices," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 9, pages 773-854, Elsevier.
    18. Claudio Soto G., 2004. "Unemployment and Consumption in Chile," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 7(1), pages 31-50, April.
    19. Catalina Amuedo‐Doranles & Susan Pozo, 2002. "Precautionary Saving by Young Immigrants and Young Natives," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(1), pages 48-71, July.
    20. Levin, Mark (Левин, Марк) & Matrosova, Ksenia (Матросова, Ксения), 2018. "Development and Research of Economic Behavior of Households in Changing Conditions [Разработка И Исследование Экономического Поведения Домохозяйств В Изменяющихся Условиях]," Working Papers 041825, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    21. Erik Hurst & Arthur Kennickell & Annamaria Lusardi & Francisco Torralba, 2005. "Precautionary Savings and the Importance of Business Owners," NBER Working Papers 11731, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment

    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:eee:ecolet:v:77:y:2002:i:1:p:27-34. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.