IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v64y2007i2p250-268.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Myopic loss aversion, disappointment aversion, and the equity premium puzzle

Author

Listed:
  • Fielding, David
  • Stracca, Livio

Abstract

This paper takes a close look at the 'behavioural finance' explanations of the equity premium puzzle, namely myopic loss aversion (Benartzi and Thaler, 1995) and disappointment aversion (Ang, Bekaert and Liu, 2000). The paper proposes a simple specification of loss and disappointment aversion and brings these theories to the data. The main conclusion of the paper is that a highly short-sighted investment horizon is required for the historical equity premium to be explained by loss aversion, while reasonable values for disappointment aversion are found also for long investment horizons. So, stocks may lose only in the short term, but may disappoint also in the long term. JEL Classification: G11, G12
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Fielding, David & Stracca, Livio, 2007. "Myopic loss aversion, disappointment aversion, and the equity premium puzzle," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 250-268, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:64:y:2007:i:2:p:250-268
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(06)00098-9
    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. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    2. Otrok, Christopher & Ravikumar, B. & Whiteman, Charles H., 2002. "Habit formation: a resolution of the equity premium puzzle?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1261-1288, September.
    3. Jia, Jianmin & Dyer, James S & Butler, John C, 2001. "Generalized Disappointment Models," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 59-78, January.
    4. John H. Cochrane, 1997. "Where is the market going? Uncertain facts and novel theories," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 21(Nov), pages 3-37.
    5. Brown, Stephen J & Goetzmann, William N & Ross, Stephen A, 1995. "Survival," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(3), pages 853-873, July.
    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. Epstein, Larry G. & Zin, Stanley E., 1990. "'First-order' risk aversion and the equity premium puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 387-407, December.
    8. George M. Constantinides & John B. Donaldson & Rajnish Mehra, 2002. "Junior Can't Borrow: A New Perspective on the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 269-296.
    9. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    10. Charles Goodhart & Margaret Bray, 2002. "You Might as Well be Hung for a Sheep as a Lamb: The Loss Function of an Agent," FMG Discussion Papers dp418, Financial Markets Group.
    11. Frankfurter, George M. & McGoun, Elton G., 2002. "Resistance is futile: the assimilation of behavioral finance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 375-389, August.
    12. Matthew Rabin, 2000. "Risk Aversion and Expected-Utility Theory: A Calibration Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1281-1292, September.
    13. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2002. "The Equity Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 637-659, April.
    14. Rietz, Thomas A., 1988. "The equity risk premium a solution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 117-131, July.
    15. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2001. "Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion, and Individual Stock Returns," NBER Working Papers 8190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Rajnish Mehra, 2003. "The Equity Premium: Why is it a Puzzle?," NBER Working Papers 9512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Constantinides, George M, 1990. "Habit Formation: A Resolution of the Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 519-543, June.
    18. 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..
    19. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang & Tano Santos, "undated". "Prospect Theory and Asset Prices," CRSP working papers 494, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    20. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert & Liu, Jun, 2005. "Why stocks may disappoint," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 471-508, June.
    21. Jeremy J. Siegel & Richard H. Thaler, 1997. "Anomalies: The Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 191-200, Winter.
    22. Gul, Faruk, 1991. "A Theory of Disappointment Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 667-686, May.
    23. Bray, Margaret & Goodhart, Charles, 2002. "You might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb: the loss function of an agent," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 24937, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    24. George M. Constantinides, 2002. "Rational Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1567-1591, August.
    25. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2001. "Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion, and Individual Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1247-1292, August.
    26. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1986. "Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 251-278, October.
    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. Weining Niu & Qingduo Zeng, 2017. "Security issuance and price impact under loss aversion," International Journal of Financial Engineering (IJFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(02n03), pages 1-9, June.
    2. Jamie Alcock & Anthony Hatherley, 2017. "Characterizing the Asymmetric Dependence Premium," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(4), pages 1701-1737.
    3. Du, Shaofu & Wang, Li & Hu, Li, 2019. "Omnichannel management with consumer disappointment aversion," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 84-101.
    4. Ascari, Guido & Rankin, Neil, 2007. "Perpetual youth and endogenous labor supply: A problem and a possible solution," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 708-723, December.
    5. Shen, Yinhai & Zhang, Qing & Zhang, Zhichao & Ma, Xinyu, 2022. "Omnichannel retailing return operations with consumer disappointment aversion," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 9(C).
    6. Catherine Donnelly, 2017. "A Discussion of a Risk-Sharing Pension Plan," Risks, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-20, February.
    7. Gordon Gemmill & Soosung Hwang & Mark Salmon, 2006. "Performance measurement with loss aversion," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(3), pages 190-207, September.
    8. Olsen, Robert A., 2008. "Trust as risk and the foundation of investment value," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2189-2200, December.
    9. Azmat, Saad & Jalil, Muhammad Naiman & Skully, Michael & Brown, Kym, 2016. "Investor’s choice of Shariah compliant ‘replicas’ and original Islamic instruments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(S), pages 4-22.
    10. Roelof Salomons, 2008. "A Theoretical And Practical Perspective On The Equity Risk Premium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 299-329, April.
    11. Ekaterina V. Orlova, 2021. "Methodology and Models for Individuals’ Creditworthiness Management Using Digital Footprint Data and Machine Learning Methods," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(15), pages 1-28, August.
    12. Emilios C. C Galariotis & Phil Holmes & Vasileios Kallinterakis & Xiaodong S. Ma, 2014. "Market states, expectations, sentiment and momentum: How naive are investors?," Post-Print hal-00943345, HAL.
    13. Kim, Sei-Wan & Krausz, Joshua & Nam, Kiseok, 2013. "Revisiting asset pricing under habit formation in an overlapping-generations economy," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 132-138.
    14. Ricardo M. Sousa, 2007. "Wealth Shocks and Risk Aversion," NIPE Working Papers 28/2007, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    15. Xie, Yuxin & Hwang, Soosung & Pantelous, Athanasios A., 2018. "Loss aversion around the world: Empirical evidence from pension funds," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 52-62.
    16. Pavlo Blavatskyy & Ganna Pogrebna, 2010. "Reevaluating evidence on myopic loss aversion: aggregate patterns versus individual choices," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 159-171, February.

    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. Stracca, Livio, 2004. "Behavioral finance and asset prices: Where do we stand?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 373-405, June.
    2. Nicholas Barberis & Ming Huang, 2006. "The Loss Aversion / Narrow Framing Approach to the Equity Premium Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 12378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Grant, Simon & Quiggin, John, 2003. "The Risk Premium for Equity: Implicatiosn for Resource Allocation, Welfare adn Policy," Working Papers 2003-14, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    4. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew & Dowd, Kevin, 2008. "Turning pension plans into pension planes: What investment strategy designers of defined contribution pension plans can learn from commercial aircraft designers," MPRA Paper 33749, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    6. Rieger, Marc Oliver & Wang, Mei, 2012. "Can ambiguity aversion solve the equity premium puzzle? Survey evidence from international data," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 63-72.
    7. Ågren, Martin, 2005. "Myopic Loss Aversion, the Equity Premium Puzzle, and GARCH," Working Paper Series 2005:11, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    8. Roelof Salomons, 2008. "A Theoretical And Practical Perspective On The Equity Risk Premium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 299-329, April.
    9. Minh Hai Ngo & Marc Oliver Rieger & Shuonan Yuan, 2018. "The Fundamental Equity Premium and Ambiguity Aversion in an International Context," Risks, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-24, November.
    10. Anderson, Anders E. S., 2004. "One for the Gain, Three for the Loss," SIFR Research Report Series 20, Institute for Financial Research.
    11. Gürtler, Marc & Hartmann, Nora, 2004. "The equity premium puzzle and emotional asset pricing," Working Papers FW10V3, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute of Finance.
    12. Javier Lopez Bernardo, 2016. "A post-Keynesian theory for the yield on equity markets," Working Papers PKWP1613, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    13. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    14. Ang, Andrew & Bekaert, Geert & Liu, Jun, 2005. "Why stocks may disappoint," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 471-508, June.
    15. Soosung Hwang & Steve Satchell, 2005. "Valuing information using utility functions: how much should we pay for linear factor models?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16.
    16. Yacine AÏT‐SAHALI & Michael W. Brandt, 2001. "Variable Selection for Portfolio Choice," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1297-1351, August.
    17. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 2003. "The equity premium in retrospect," 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 14, pages 889-938, Elsevier.
    18. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    19. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," 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 13, pages 803-887, Elsevier.
    20. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:jeborg:v:64:y:2007:i:2:p:250-268. 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/jebo .

    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.