IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/19958.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Asset Prices in a Lifecycle Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Roger Farmer

Abstract

The representative agent model (RA) has dominated macroeconomics for the last thirty years. This model does a reasonably good job of explaining the co-movements of consumption, investment, GDP and employment during normal times. But it cannot easily explain movements in asset prices. Two facts are hard to understand 1) The return to equity is highly volatile and 2) The premium for holding equity, over a safe government bond, is large. The equity premium has two parts; a risk premium and a term premium. This paper constructs a lifecycle model in which agents of different generations have different savings rates and I use this model to account for a high term premium and a volatile stochastic discount factor. The fact the term premium is large, accounts for a substantial part of the observed equity premium.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger Farmer, 2014. "Asset Prices in a Lifecycle Economy," NBER Working Papers 19958, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19958
    Note: EFG IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w19958.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Constantinides, George M & Duffie, Darrell, 1996. "Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Consumers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 219-240, April.
    3. Abel, Andrew B, 1990. "Asset Prices under Habit Formation and Catching Up with the Joneses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 38-42, May.
    4. Felix KUBLER & Karl SCHMEDDERS, 2010. "Life-Cycle Portfolio Choice, the Wealth Distribution and Asset Prices," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 10-21, Swiss Finance Institute.
    5. 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.
    6. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Jessica A. Wachter, 2013. "Can Time-Varying Risk of Rare Disasters Explain Aggregate Stock Market Volatility?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 987-1035, June.
    8. Roger E.A. Farmer & Carine Nourry & Alain Venditti, 2012. "The Inefficient Markets Hypothesis: Why Financial Markets Do Not Work Well in the Real World," NBER Working Papers 18647, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Rietz, Thomas A., 1988. "The equity risk premium a solution," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 117-131, July.
    10. Balasko, Yves & Cass, David, 1989. "The Structure of Financial Equilibrium with Exogenous Yields: The Case of Incomplete Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(1), pages 135-162, January.
    11. Christian Julliard & Anisha Ghosh, 2012. "Can Rare Events Explain the Equity Premium Puzzle?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(10), pages 3037-3076.
    12. 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.
    13. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2003. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    16. Robert J. Barro, 2005. "Rare Events and the Equity Premium," NBER Working Papers 11310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Woodford, Michael, 2001. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 669-728, August.
    18. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    19. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. 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.
    21. Xavier Gabaix, 2007. "Linearity-Generating Processes: A Modelling Tool Yielding Closed Forms for Asset Prices," NBER Working Papers 13430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Annette Vissing-Jørgensen & Orazio P. Attanasio, 2003. "Stock-Market Participation, Intertemporal Substitution, and Risk-Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 383-391, May.
    23. Azariadis, Costas, 1981. "Self-fulfilling prophecies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 380-396, December.
    24. G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), 2003. "Handbook of the Economics of Finance," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 2, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Asset Prices in a Lifecycle Economy
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2014-03-19 06:56:49

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Farmer, Roger, 2016. "Pricing Assets in an Economy with Two Types of People," CEPR Discussion Papers 11253, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Joseph P. Byrne & Shuo Cao & Dimitris Korobilis, 2015. "Co-Movement, Spillovers and Excess Returns in Global Bond Markets?," Working Papers 2015_12, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    3. Roger E. A. Farmer, 2018. "Pricing Assets in a Perpetual Youth Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 106-124, October.
    4. Byrne, Joseph P. & Cao, Shuo & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2015. "Co-Movement, Spillovers and Excess Returns in Global Bond Markets," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-75, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    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. Roger E. A. Farmer, 2018. "Pricing Assets in a Perpetual Youth Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 30, pages 106-124, October.
    2. Farmer, Roger, 2016. "Pricing Assets in an Economy with Two Types of People," CEPR Discussion Papers 11253, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Jerry Tsai & Jessica A. Wachter, 2015. "Disaster Risk and its Implications for Asset Pricing," NBER Working Papers 20926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. 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.
    5. John Donaldson & Rajnish Mehra, 2007. "Risk Based Explanations of the Equity Premium," NBER Working Papers 13220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. George M. Constantinides, 2006. "Market Organization And The Prices Of Financial Assets," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 74(s1), pages 1-23, September.
    7. J. Bradford DeLong & Konstantin Magin, 2009. "The U.S. Equity Return Premium: Past, Present, and Future," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 193-208, Winter.
    8. Marc Oliver Rieger & Thorsten Hens & Mei Wang, 2013. "International Evidence on the Equity Premium Puzzle and Time Discounting," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 17(3-4), pages 149-163, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Roberto Marfè & Julien Penasse, 2016. "The Time-Varying Risk of Macroeconomic Disasters," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 463, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    11. Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2013. "Advances in Consumption-Based Asset Pricing: Empirical Tests," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 799-906, Elsevier.
    12. Farmer, Roger, 2015. "Global Sunspots and Asset Prices in a Monetary Economy," CEPR Discussion Papers 10402, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Hasseltoft, Henrik, 2007. "The Long-run Risk Model: Dynamics and Cyclicality of Interest Rates," SIFR Research Report Series 58, Institute for Financial Research.
    14. Sang Byung Seo & Jessica A. Wachter, 2019. "Option Prices in a Model with Stochastic Disaster Risk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3449-3469, August.
    15. Horvath, Jaroslav, 2020. "Macroeconomic disasters and the equity premium puzzle: Are emerging countries riskier?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    16. Takamizawa, Hideyuki, 2022. "An equilibrium model of the term structures of bonds and equities," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    17. 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.
    18. Berrada, Tony & Detemple, Jérôme & Rindisbacher, Marcel, 2018. "Asset pricing with beliefs-dependent risk aversion and learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(3), pages 504-534.
    19. John Y. Campbell, 2003. "Two Puzzles of Asset Pricing and Their Implications for Investors," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 47(1), pages 48-74, March.
    20. Kazufumi Yamana, 2016. "Structural Household Finance," Discussion papers ron279, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:nbr:nberwo:19958. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.