IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2005-009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Asset Mispricing Due to Cognitive Dissonance

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Bernhard Eckwert
  • Mr. Burkhard Drees

Abstract

The behavior of equity prices is analyzed in a general equilibrium model where agents have preferences not only over consumption but also (implicitly) over their beliefs. To alleviate cognitive dissonance, investors endogenously choose to ignore information that conflicts too much with their ex ante expectations. Depending on the new information that is released, systematic overvaluation and undervaluation of equity prices arise, as well as too much and too little equity price volatility. The distortion in the asset pricing process is closely related to the precision of the information.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Bernhard Eckwert & Mr. Burkhard Drees, 2005. "Asset Mispricing Due to Cognitive Dissonance," IMF Working Papers 2005/009, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2005/009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=17937
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Jonathan A. Parker, 2005. "Optimal Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1092-1118, September.
    3. repec:fth:starer:98-25 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. 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.
    5. repec:fth:starer:9825 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Akerlof, George A & Dickens, William T, 1982. "The Economic Consequences of Cognitive Dissonance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 307-319, June.
    7. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    8. Barberis, Nicholas & Thaler, Richard, 2003. "A survey of behavioral finance," 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 18, pages 1053-1128, Elsevier.
    9. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1988. "Permanent and Temporary Components of Stock Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 246-273, April.
    10. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    11. S. Rao Aiyagari & Mark Gertler, 1999. ""Overreaction" of Asset Prices in General Equilibrium," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 3-35, January.
    12. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:1839-1885 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 421-436, June.
    14. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    15. Matthew Rabin, 1998. "Psychology and Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 11-46, March.
    16. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 59-82, Winter.
    17. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September.
    18. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    19. Cohen, Randolph B. & Gompers, Paul A. & Vuolteenaho, Tuomo, 2002. "Who underreacts to cash-flow news? evidence from trading between individuals and institutions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 409-462.
    20. Burton G. Malkiel, 2003. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Its Critics," Working Papers 111, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    21. Juan D. Carrillo & Thomas Mariotti, 2000. "Strategic Ignorance as a Self-Disciplining Device," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 529-544.
    22. Bakshi, Gurdip S & Chen, Zhiwu, 1996. "The Spirit of Capitalism and Stock-Market Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 133-157, March.
    23. repec:cdl:ucsbec:13-89 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    25. repec:pri:cepsud:91malkiel is not listed on IDEAS
    26. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Kenneth D. West, 1988. "Bubbles, Fads, and Stock Price Volatility Tests: A Partial Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 2574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Chopra, Navin & Lakonishok, Josef & Ritter, Jay R., 1992. "Measuring abnormal performance : Do stocks overreact?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 235-268, April.
    29. LeRoy, Stephen F, 1989. "Efficient Capital Markets and Martingales," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 1583-1621, December.
    30. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:1:p:267-284 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Matthew Rabin & Joel L. Schrag, 1999. "First Impressions Matter: A Model of Confirmatory Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 37-82.
    32. Leeat Yariv, 2002. "I'll See It When I Believe It - A Simple Model of Cognitive Consistency," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1352, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    33. Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Titman, Sheridan, 1993. "Returns to Buying Winners and Selling Losers: Implications for Stock Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 65-91, 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. Colin Ellis, 2014. "Break-even maturity as a guide to financial distress," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 8(4), December.
    2. Pirie, Scott & Chan, Ronald King To, 2018. "A two-stage study of momentum investing in Asia: A case of cognitive dissonance?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 340-349.
    3. Mark Bowden, 2015. "A model of information flows and confirmatory bias in financial markets," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 38(2), pages 197-215, October.

    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. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    2. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    3. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    4. Evan W. Anderson & Eric Ghysels & Jennifer L. Juergens, 2005. "Do Heterogeneous Beliefs Matter for Asset Pricing?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 875-924.
    5. Alexander Ludwig & Alexander Zimper, 2013. "A decision-theoretic model of asset-price underreaction and overreaction to dividend news," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 625-665, November.
    6. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    7. Chan, Wesley S. & Frankel, Richard & Kothari, S.P., 2004. "Testing behavioral finance theories using trends and consistency in financial performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 3-50, December.
    8. 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.
    9. Alexander S. Sangare, 2005. "Efficience des marchés : un siècle après Bachelier," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 81(4), pages 107-132.
    10. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    11. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, February.
    12. Elena Argentesi & Helmut Lütkepohl & Massimo Motta, 2010. "Acquisition of Information and Share Prices: An Empirical Investigation of Cognitive Dissonance," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(3), pages 381-396, August.
    13. Paul Handro & Bogdan Dima, 2024. "Analyzing Financial Markets Efficiency: Insights from a Bibliometric and Content Review," Journal of Financial Studies, Institute of Financial Studies, vol. 16(9), pages 119-175, May.
    14. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    15. Daniele SCHILIRÒ, 2013. "Bounded Rationality: Psychology, Economics And The Financial Crises," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 4(1), pages 97-108.
    16. George M. Constantinides, 2002. "Rational Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1567-1591, August.
    17. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    18. Thomas Holtfort, 2019. "From standard to evolutionary finance: a literature survey," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 69(2), pages 207-232, June.
    19. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.
    20. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; mover accent;

    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:imf:imfwpa:2005/009. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.