IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhhfms/2005_018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Prospect Theory Explain the Disposition Effect?

Author

Listed:
  • Hens, Thorsten

    (Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich)

  • Vlcek, Martin

    (Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich)

Abstract

The disposition effect is the observation that investors hold winning stocks too long and sell losing stocks too early. A standard explanation of the disposition effect refers to prospect theory and in particular to the asymmetric risk aversion according to which investors are risk averse when faced with gains and risk-seeking when faced with losses. We show that for reasonable parameter values the disposition effect can however not be explained by prospect theory as proposed by Kahneman and Tversky. The reason is that those investors who sell winning stocks and hold loosing assets would in the first place not have invested in stocks. That is to say the standard prospect theory argument is sound ex-post, assuming that the investment has taken place, but not ex-ante, requiring that the investment is made in the first place.

Suggested Citation

  • Hens, Thorsten & Vlcek, Martin, 2005. "Does Prospect Theory Explain the Disposition Effect?," Discussion Papers 2005/18, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2005_018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/163748
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Arjan B. Berkelaar & Roy Kouwenberg & Thierry Post, 2004. "Optimal Portfolio Choice under Loss Aversion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 973-987, November.
    3. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Kyle, Albert S. & Ou-Yang, Hui & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Prospect theory and liquidation decisions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 273-288, July.
    5. Grinblatt, Mark & Keloharju, Matti, 2000. "The investment behavior and performance of various investor types: a study of Finland's unique data set," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 43-67, January.
    6. Weber, Martin & Camerer, Colin F., 1998. "The disposition effect in securities trading: an experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 167-184, January.
    7. Francisco J. Gomes, 2005. "Portfolio Choice and Trading Volume with Loss-Averse Investors," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(2), pages 675-706, March.
    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. Nicholas Barberis & Wei Xiong, 2009. "What Drives the Disposition Effect? An Analysis of a Long‐Standing Preference‐Based Explanation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 751-784, April.
    2. Enrico Giorgi & Thorsten Hens, 2006. "Making prospect theory fit for finance," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 20(3), pages 339-360, September.
    3. Daniel W. Richards & Janette Rutterford & Devendra Kodwani & Mark Fenton-O'Creevy, 2017. "Stock market investors' use of stop losses and the disposition effect," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 130-152, January.
    4. Ormos, Mihály & Joó, István, 2011. "Diszpozíciós hatás a magyar tőkepiacon [Disposition effect in the Hungarian capital market]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 743-758.
    5. Ormos, Mihály & Joó, István, 2014. "Are Hungarian investors reluctant to realize their losses?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 52-58.
    6. Boolell-Gunesh S. & Broihanne M-H. & Merli M., 2008. "Are French Individual Investors reluctant to realize their losses?," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2008-09, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.

    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. 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.
    2. Thorsten Hens & Martin Vlcek, 2006. "Does Prospect Theory Explain the Disposition Effect?," IEW - Working Papers 262, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. 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.
    4. Enrico Giorgi & Thorsten Hens, 2006. "Making prospect theory fit for finance," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 20(3), pages 339-360, September.
    5. Vicky Henderson, 2012. "Prospect Theory, Liquidation, and the Disposition Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 445-460, February.
    6. Nicholas Barberis & Wei Xiong, 2009. "What Drives the Disposition Effect? An Analysis of a Long‐Standing Preference‐Based Explanation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 751-784, April.
    7. Pasquariello, Paolo, 2014. "Prospect Theory and market quality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 276-310.
    8. Yao, Jing & Li, Duan, 2013. "Prospect theory and trading patterns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2793-2805.
    9. Allen, Franklin & Vayanos, Dimitri & Vives, Xavier, 2014. "Introduction to financial economics," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Shoji, Isao & Kanehiro, Sumei, 2016. "Disposition effect as a behavioral trading activity elicited by investors' different risk preferences," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 104-112.
    11. Jonathan E. Ingersoll Jr. & Lawrence J. Jin, 2014. "Realization Utility with Reference-Dependent Preferences," Papers 1408.2859, arXiv.org.
    12. Døskeland, Trond M. & Nordahl, Helge A., 2008. "Optimal pension insurance design," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 382-392, March.
    13. Choi, Darwin, 2019. "Disposition sales and stock market liquidity," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 19-36.
    14. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    15. Blake, David & Wright, Douglas & Zhang, Yumeng, 2013. "Target-driven investing: Optimal investment strategies in defined contribution pension plans under loss aversion," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 195-209.
    16. Servaas van Bilsen & Roger J. A. Laeven & Theo E. Nijman, 2020. "Consumption and Portfolio Choice Under Loss Aversion and Endogenous Updating of the Reference Level," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 3927-3955, September.
    17. Boolell-Gunesh S. & Broihanne M-H. & Merli M., 2008. "Are French Individual Investors reluctant to realize their losses?," Working Papers of LaRGE Research Center 2008-09, Laboratoire de Recherche en Gestion et Economie (LaRGE), Université de Strasbourg.
    18. Jaroslava Hlouskova & Jana Mikocziova & Rudolf Sivak & Peter Tsigaris, 2014. "Capital Income Taxation and Risk-Taking under Prospect Theory: The Continuous Distribution Case," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 64(5), pages 374-391, November.
    19. Wu, Yahao & Wang, Xiao-Tian & Wu, Min, 2009. "Fractional-moment CAPM with loss aversion," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 1406-1414.
    20. Li, Yan & Yang, Liyan, 2013. "Prospect theory, the disposition effect, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 715-739.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Disposition effect; prospect theory; portfolio choice;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    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:hhs:nhhfms:2005_018. 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: Stein Fossen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dfnhhno.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.