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Safe Haven Assets and Investor Behaviour Under Uncertainty

Author

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  • Dirk G. Baur

    (University of Technology, Sydney - School of Finance and Economics)

  • Thomas K.J. McDermott

    (School of Business and Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin)

Abstract

We study two different safe haven assets, US government bonds and gold, and examine how the price changes of these assets can be used to infer investor behaviour under uncertainty. We find that investors are ambiguity-averse, that is they buy gold when faced with extreme uncertainty about the state of the economy or thefinancial system and when they receive ambiguous signals. In contrast, investors buyUS government bonds when faced with extreme but unambiguous signals. We also show that there is overreaction to ambiguous signals.

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk G. Baur & Thomas K.J. McDermott, 2011. "Safe Haven Assets and Investor Behaviour Under Uncertainty," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp392, IIIS, revised Feb 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp392
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    Cited by:

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    2. Frode Kjærland & Aras Khazal & Erlend A. Krogstad & Frans B. G. Nordstrøm & Are Oust, 2018. "An Analysis of Bitcoin’s Price Dynamics," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-18, October.
    3. Apostolos Ampountolas, 2024. "Enhancing Forecasting Accuracy in Commodity and Financial Markets: Insights from GARCH and SVR Models," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-20, June.
    4. Robiyanto Robiyanto & Bayu Adi Nugroho & Eka Handriani & Andrian Dolfriandra Huruta, 2020. "Hedge effectiveness of put replication, gold, and oil on ASEAN-5 equities," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 6(1), pages 1-29, December.
    5. Mensi, Walid & Ali, Syed Riaz Mahmood & Vo, Xuan Vinh & Kang, Sang Hoon, 2022. "Multiscale dependence, spillovers, and connectedness between precious metals and currency markets: A hedge and safe-haven analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Charteris, Ailie & Kallinterakis, Vasileios, 2021. "Feedback trading in retail-dominated assets: Evidence from the gold bullion coin market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    7. Hossfeld, Oliver & MacDonald, Ronald, 2015. "Carry funding and safe haven currencies: A threshold regression approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 185-202.
    8. Chi-Wei Su & Lidong Pang & Muhammad Umar & Oana-Ramona Lobonţ, 2022. "Will Gold Always Shine amid World Uncertainty?," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(12), pages 3425-3438, September.
    9. Li, Sile & Lucey, Brian M., 2017. "Reassessing the role of precious metals as safe havens–What colour is your haven and why?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Chang, Meng-Shiuh & Ju, Peijie & Liu, Yilei & Hsueh, Shao-Chieh, 2022. "Determining hedges and safe havens for stocks using interval analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    11. Hakan Öztunç & Mehmet Orhan, 2021. "Gold Demand by Central Banks: A Comparative Study of Emerging Market and Advanced Economies," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(9), pages 2687-2698, July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    uncertainty; financial crisis; safe haven; gold; bonds; Ellsberg decision rule; black swan event;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

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