IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nst/samfok/0202.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On Asymmetric Information across Countries and the Home-Bias Puzzel

Author

Listed:
  • Egil Matsen

    (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

This paper investigates the allocation decision of an investor who owns two projects, a domestic and a foreign one. A manager governs the expected return from each project, and the investor has less information on the actions of the foreign manager. The investor’s portfolio will be tilted relative to a situation with full information. With asymmetric information, he generally achieves a better risk-return characteristic of his net terminal wealth with an allocation different from full diversification, because a biased allocation can be beneficial to the managers’ efforts and/or risk properties of the optimal contracts. However, numerical simulations illustrate that, in general, the portfolio bias is small for plausible parameter values, and theoretically it may even be towards the foreign project. This weakens the case for asymmetric information as a prime reason for the observed home-bias in portfolio allocation.

Suggested Citation

  • Egil Matsen, 2001. "On Asymmetric Information across Countries and the Home-Bias Puzzel," Working Paper Series 0202, Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
    • Handle: RePEc:nst:samfok:0202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/WP/2002/2MHHB_25_sep_00.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon, Roger H & Bovenberg, A Lans, 1996. "Why Is Capital So Immobile Internationally? Possible Explanations and Implications for Capital Income Taxation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1057-1075, December.
    2. Karen K. Lewis, 1999. "Trying to Explain Home Bias in Equities and Consumption," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(2), pages 571-608, June.
    3. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, April.
    4. Brennan, Michael J & Cao, H Henry, 1997. "International Portfolio Investment Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 1851-1880, December.
    5. Tesar, Linda L. & Werner, Ingrid M., 1995. "Home bias and high turnover," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 467-492, August.
    6. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    7. Cooper, Ian & Kaplanis, Evi, 1994. "Home Bias in Equity Portfolios, Inflation Hedging, and International Capital Market Equilibrium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 7(1), pages 45-60.
    8. Schattler, Heinz & Sung, Jaeyoung, 1997. "On optimal sharing rules in discrete-and continuous-time principal-agent problems with exponential utility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 551-574.
    9. repec:bla:scandj:v:95:y:1993:i:1:p:97-109 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Danqing Young & David A. Guenther, 2003. "Financial Reporting Environments and International Capital Mobility," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 553-579, June.
    2. Nicolas Coeurdacier & Hélène Rey, 2013. "Home Bias in Open Economy Financial Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 63-115, March.
    3. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g81p7j6b6 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Portes, Richard & Rey, Helene, 2005. "The determinants of cross-border equity flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 269-296, March.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g81p7j6b6 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g81p7j6b6 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Nicolas Coeurdacier & Hélène Rey, 2010. "Home bias in open economy financial macroeconomics," SciencePo Working papers hal-01069440, HAL.
    8. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g81p7j6b6 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Liljeblom, Eva & Loflund, Anders, 2005. "Determinants of international portfolio investment flows to a small market: Empirical evidence," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 211-233, July.
    10. Jean-Pierre DANTHINE & Francesco Giavazzi & Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, 2000. "European Financial Markets After EMU: A First Assessment," FAME Research Paper Series rp13, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    11. Baele, Lieven & Pungulescu, Crina & Ter Horst, Jenke, 2007. "Model uncertainty, financial market integration and the home bias puzzle," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 606-630, June.
    12. Ni, Jinlan, 2009. "The effects of portfolio size on international equity home bias puzzle," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 469-478, June.
    13. Shujing Li & Mr. Hamid Faruqee & Isabel K. Yan, 2004. "The Determinants of International Portfolio Holdings and Home Bias," IMF Working Papers 2004/034, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Giofré, Maela, 2014. "Domestic investor protection and foreign portfolio investment," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 355-371.
    15. Barron, John M. & Ni, Jinlan, 2008. "Endogenous asymmetric information and international equity home bias: The effects of portfolio size and information costs," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 617-635, June.
    16. Fidora, Michael & Fratzscher, Marcel & Thimann, Christian, 2007. "Home bias in global bond and equity markets: The role of real exchange rate volatility," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 631-655, June.
    17. Mondria, Jordi & Wu, Thomas, 2010. "The puzzling evolution of the home bias, information processing and financial openness," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 875-896, May.
    18. Richard Portes and Hélène Rey., 2000. "The Determinants of Cross-Border Equity Flows: The Geography of Information," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C00-111, University of California at Berkeley.
    19. Daly, Kevin & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2013. "The determinants of home bias puzzle in equity portfolio investment in Australia," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 34-42.
    20. Lee, Soyean, 2016. "Geography of cross-border portfolio investments and ICT diffusion," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 540-552.
    21. Sorensen, Bent E. & Wu, Yi-Tsung & Yosha, Oved & Zhu, Yu, 2007. "Home bias and international risk sharing: Twin puzzles separated at birth," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 587-605, June.
    22. Juan-Pedro Gómez & Richard Priestly & Fernando Zapatero, 2003. "Keeping up with the Joneses: An international asset pricing model," Economics Working Papers 694, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    23. Kang, Hyung Cheol & Lee, Dong Wook & Park, Kyung Suh, 2010. "Does the difference in valuation between domestic and foreign investors help explain their distinct holdings of domestic stocks?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(12), pages 2886-2896, December.
    24. Berkel Barbara, 2007. "Institutional Determinants of International Equity Portfolios - A Country-Level Analysis," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-33, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asymmetric information; portfolio selection;

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • 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:nst:samfok:0202. 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: Anne Larsen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isontno.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.