IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_909.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Collective Risk-Taking Decisions with Heterogeneous Beliefs

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Gollier

Abstract

Suppose that a group of agents having divergent expectations can share risks efficiently. We examine how this group should behave collectively to manage these risks. We show that the beliefs of the representative agent is in general a function of the group.s wealth level, or equivalently, that the representative agent has a state-dependent utility function. We define the individual degree of pessimism as an index measuring probability differences across states. We show that the degree of pessimism of the representative agent is the mean of the individual ones weighted by their index of absolute risk tolerance. From this central result, we show how increasing disagreement on the state probability affects the state probability of the representative agent. We show that the divergence of opinions about the probability of occurence of a boom may help solving the equity premium puzzle.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Gollier, 2003. "Collective Risk-Taking Decisions with Heterogeneous Beliefs," CESifo Working Paper Series 909, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_909
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo_wp909.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    2. Abel, Andrew B., 2002. "An exploration of the effects of pessimism and doubt on asset returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(7-8), pages 1075-1092, July.
    3. Leland, Hayne E, 1980. "Who Should Buy Portfolio Insurance?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(2), pages 581-594, May.
    4. Pok-sang Lam & Stephen G. Cecchetti & Nelson C. Mark, 2000. "Asset Pricing with Distorted Beliefs: Are Equity Returns Too Good to Be True?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 787-805, September.
    5. Hara, Chiaki & Huang, James & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2007. "Representative consumer's risk aversion and efficient risk-sharing rules," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 652-672, November.
    6. Laurent Calvet & Jean-Michel Grandmont & Isabelle Lemaire, 2001. "Aggregation of Heterogenous Beliefs and Asset Pricing in Complete Financial Markets," Working Papers 2001-01, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    7. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1971. "Increasing risk II: Its economic consequences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 66-84, March.
    8. Christian Gollier, 2004. "The Economics of Risk and Time," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262572249, December.
    9. Constantinides, George M, 1982. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Consumers and without Demand Aggregation," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 253-267, April.
    10. Gollier Christian, 1995. "The Comparative Statics of Changes in Risk Revisited," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 522-535, August.
    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. Christian Gollier & Richard Zeckhauser, 2003. "Collective Investment Decision Making with Heterogeneous Time Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 915, CESifo.
    2. Christian Gollier, 2007. "Whom should we believe? Aggregation of heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 107-127, October.
    3. Jouini, Elyes & Napp, Clotilde, 2006. "Heterogeneous beliefs and asset pricing in discrete time: An analysis of pessimism and doubt," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1233-1260, July.

    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. Christian Gollier, 2007. "Whom should we believe? Aggregation of heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 107-127, October.
    2. Gollier, Christian, 2003. "Who Should we Believe? Collective Risk-Taking Decisions with Heterogeneous Beliefs," IDEI Working Papers 201, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    3. Calvet, Laurent-Emmanuel & Grandmont, Jean-Michel & Lemaire, Isabelle, 2018. "Aggregation of heterogenous beliefs, asset pricing, and risk sharing in complete financial markets," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 117-146.
    4. Gollier, Christian, 2008. "Understanding saving and portfolio choices with predictable changes in assets returns," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(5-6), pages 445-458, April.
    5. Christian Gollier & Richard Zeckhauser, 2003. "Collective Investment Decision Making with Heterogeneous Time Preferences," NBER Working Papers 9629, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Christian Gollier, 2011. "Portfolio Choices and Asset Prices: The Comparative Statics of Ambiguity Aversion," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(4), pages 1329-1344.
    7. Carl Chiarella & Roberto Dieci & Xue-Zhong He, 2006. "Aggregation of Heterogeneous Beliefs and Asset Pricing Theory: A Mean-Variance Analysis," Research Paper Series 186, Quantitative Finance Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney.
    8. Masamitsu Ohnishi & Yusuke Osaki, 2005. "The Monotonicity of Asset Prices with Changes in Risk," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 05-14, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    9. Jouini, E. & Napp, C., 2008. "On Abel's concept of doubt and pessimism," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 3682-3694, November.
    10. Gollier, Christian & Schlesinger, Harris, 2002. "Changes in risk and asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 747-760, May.
    11. Hara, Chiaki & Huang, James & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2011. "Effects of background risks on cautiousness with an application to a portfolio choice problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 346-358, January.
    12. Alexis Louaas & Pierre Picard, 2021. "Optimal insurance coverage of low-probability catastrophic risks," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 46(1), pages 61-88, March.
    13. Louis Eeckhoudt & Liqun Liu & Jack Meyer, 2017. "Restricted increases in risk aversion and their application," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(1), pages 161-181, June.
    14. Christian Gollier & Alexander Muermann, 2010. "Optimal Choice and Beliefs with Ex Ante Savoring and Ex Post Disappointment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(8), pages 1272-1284, August.
    15. Hara, Chiaki & Huang, James & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2007. "Representative consumer's risk aversion and efficient risk-sharing rules," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 652-672, November.
    16. Christian Gollier & Miles S. Kimball, 2018. "New methods in the classical economics of uncertainty: comparing risks," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 43(1), pages 5-23, May.
    17. Chabi-Yo, Fousseni & Leisen, Dietmar P.J. & Renault, Eric, 2014. "Aggregation of preferences for skewed asset returns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 453-489.
    18. Christian Gollier, 2005. "Optimal Illusions and Decisions under Risk," CESifo Working Paper Series 1382, CESifo.
    19. Jokung, Octave, 2013. "Monotonicity of asset price toward higher changes in risk," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 195-198.
    20. Christian Gollier & James Hammitt & Nicolas Treich, 2013. "Risk and choice: A research saga," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 129-145, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    aggregation of beliefs; state-dependent utility; efficient risk sharing; pessimism; disagreement; asset pricing; portfolio choices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_909. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.