IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/crcrmw/2019_002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Coherent diversification measures in portfolio theory: An axiomatic foundation

Author

Listed:
  • Koumou, Gilles Boevi

    (HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management)

  • Dionne, Georges

    (HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management)

Abstract

This paper provides an axiomatic foundation of the measurement of diversification in a one-period portfolio theory under the assumption that the investor has complete information about the joint distribution of asset returns. Four categories of portfolio diversification measures can be distinguished: the law of large numbers diversification measures, the correlation diversification measures, the market portfolio diversification measures and the risk contribution diversification measures. We offer the first step towards a rigorous theory of correlation diversification measures. We propose a set of nine desirable axioms for this class of diversification measures, and name the measures satisfying these axioms coherent diversification measures that we distinguish from the notion of coherent risk measures. We provide the decision-theoretic foundations of our axioms by studying their compatibility with investors’ preference for diversification in two important decision theories under risk: the expected utility theory and Yaari’s dual theory. We explore whether useful methods of measuring portfolio diversification satisfy our axioms. We also investigate whether or not our axioms have forms of representation.

Suggested Citation

  • Koumou, Gilles Boevi & Dionne, Georges, 2019. "Coherent diversification measures in portfolio theory: An axiomatic foundation," Working Papers 19-2, HEC Montreal, Canada Research Chair in Risk Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:crcrmw:2019_002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.risksresearch.com/_files/ugd/a6eed3_359e04d5d53542c99f12c9ac64f9cfe8.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. R. Rockafellar & Stan Uryasev & Michael Zabarankin, 2006. "Generalized deviations in risk analysis," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 51-74, January.
    2. Frittelli, Marco & Rosazza Gianin, Emanuela, 2002. "Putting order in risk measures," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1473-1486, July.
    3. Stephen A. Ross, 2013. "The Arbitrage Theory of Capital Asset Pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 1, pages 11-30, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Dhaene, Jan & Denuit, Michel & Vanduffel, Steven, 2009. "Correlation order, merging and diversification," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 325-332, December.
    5. Nakamura, Yutaka, 2015. "Mean-variance utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 536-556.
    6. Nakamura Y., 1996. "Rank dependent utility for arbitrary consequnce spaces," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 54-54, February.
    7. Mao, Tiantian & Lv, Wenhua & Hu, Taizhong, 2012. "Second-order expansions of the risk concentration based on CTE," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 449-456.
    8. Quiggin John & Wakker Peter, 1994. "The Axiomatic Basis of Anticipated Utility: A Clarification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 486-499, December.
    9. Alain Chateauneuf & Ghizlane Lakhnati, 2007. "From sure to strong diversification," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(3), pages 511-522, September.
    10. John L. Evans & Stephen H. Archer, 1968. "Diversification And The Reduction Of Dispersion: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(5), pages 761-767, December.
    11. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Marc Potters & Jean-Pierre Aguilar, 1997. "Missing information and asset allocation," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 500045, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    12. Enrico G. De Giorgi & Ola Mahmoud, 2016. "Diversification preferences in the theory of choice," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 39(2), pages 143-174, November.
    13. Yaari, Menahem E, 1987. "The Dual Theory of Choice under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 95-115, January.
    14. Roncalli, Thierry, 2013. "Introduction to Risk Parity and Budgeting," MPRA Paper 47679, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Benoît Carmichael & Gilles Boevi Koumou & Kevin Moran, 2023. "Unifying Portfolio Diversification Measures Using Rao’s Quadratic Entropy," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 21(4), pages 769-802, December.
    16. Hua, Lei & Joe, Harry, 2012. "Tail comonotonicity: Properties, constructions, and asymptotic additivity of risk measures," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 492-503.
    17. Tsanakas, A. & Desli, E., 2003. "Risk Measures and Theories of Choice," British Actuarial Journal, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 959-991, October.
    18. Nam, Hee Seok & Tang, Qihe & Yang, Fan, 2011. "Characterization of upper comonotonicity via tail convex order," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 368-373, May.
    19. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2019. "What are axiomatizations good for?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 86(3), pages 339-359, May.
    21. Mohammed Abdellaoui, 2002. "A Genuine Rank-Dependent Generalization of the Von Neumann-Morgenstern Expected Utility Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 717-736, March.
    22. Jean-Marc Tallon & Alain Chateauneuf, 2002. "Diversification, convex preferences and non-empty core in the Choquet expected utility model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 19(3), pages 509-523.
    23. Jean-Marc Tallon & Alain Chateauneuf, 2002. "Diversification, convex preferences and non-empty core in the Choquet expected utility model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 19(3), pages 509-523.
    24. Daniela Laas & Caroline Franziska Siegel, 2017. "Basel III Versus Solvency II: An Analysis of Regulatory Consistency Under the New Capital Standards," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 84(4), pages 1231-1267, December.
    25. Christian S. Pedersen & Stephen E. Satchell, 1998. "An Extended Family of Financial-Risk Measures," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 23(2), pages 89-117, December.
    26. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    27. Gregor Dorfleitner & Michael Krapp, 2007. "On multiattributive risk aversion: some clarifying results," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 47-63, April.
    28. Paul Embrechts & Bin Wang & Ruodu Wang, 2015. "Aggregation-robustness and model uncertainty of regulatory risk measures," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 763-790, October.
    29. Dhaene, J. & Denuit, M. & Goovaerts, M. J. & Kaas, R. & Vyncke, D., 2002. "The concept of comonotonicity in actuarial science and finance: theory," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 3-33, August.
    30. Scott Willenbrock, 2011. "Diversification Return, Portfolio Rebalancing, and the Commodity Return Puzzle," Papers 1109.1256, arXiv.org.
    31. Dong, Jing & Cheung, Ka Chun & Yang, Hailiang, 2010. "Upper comonotonicity and convex upper bounds for sums of random variables," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 159-166, October.
    32. Philippe Artzner & Freddy Delbaen & Jean‐Marc Eber & David Heath, 1999. "Coherent Measures of Risk," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 203-228, July.
    33. Denuit Michel & Dhaene Jan & Goovaerts Marc & Kaas Rob & Laeven Roger, 2006. "Risk measurement with equivalent utility principles," Statistics & Risk Modeling, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 1-25, July.
    34. Tong, Bin & Wu, Chongfeng & Xu, Weidong, 2012. "Risk concentration of aggregated dependent risks: The second-order properties," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 139-149.
    35. Jan Dhaene & Mark Goovaerts & Rob Kaas, 2003. "Economic Capital Allocation Derived from Risk Measures," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 44-56.
    36. Goovaerts, Marc J. & Kaas, Rob & Laeven, Roger J.A. & Tang, Qihe, 2004. "A comonotonic image of independence for additive risk measures," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 581-594, December.
    37. Degen, Matthias & Lambrigger, Dominik D. & Segers, Johan, 2010. "Risk concentration and diversification: Second-order properties," LIDAM Reprints ISBA 2010011, Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA).
    38. Meyer, Jack, 1987. "Two-moment Decision Models and Expected Utility Maximization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 421-430, June.
    39. Embrechts, Paul & Puccetti, Giovanni & Rüschendorf, Ludger, 2013. "Model uncertainty and VaR aggregation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2750-2764.
    40. Degen, Matthias & Lambrigger, Dominik D. & Segers, Johan, 2010. "Risk concentration and diversification: Second-order properties," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 541-546, June.
    41. Steffen Andersen & Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2018. "Multiattribute Utility Theory, Intertemporal Utility, And Correlation Aversion," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(2), pages 537-555, May.
    42. Dirk Tasche, 2005. "Measuring sectoral diversification in an asymptotic multi-factor framework," Papers physics/0505142, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2006.
    43. Samuelson, Paul A., 1967. "General Proof that Diversification Pays*," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, March.
    44. Dhaene, J. & Denuit, M. & Goovaerts, M. J. & Kaas, R. & Vyncke, D., 2002. "The concept of comonotonicity in actuarial science and finance: applications," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 133-161, October.
    45. Hans Föllmer & Stefan Weber, 2015. "The Axiomatic Approach to Risk Measures for Capital Determination," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 301-337, December.
    46. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    47. Machina, Mark J, 1987. "Choice under Uncertainty: Problems Solved and Unsolved," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 121-154, Summer.
    48. Denuit Michel & Dhaene Jan & Goovaerts Marc & Kaas Rob & Laeven Roger, 2006. "Risk measurement with equivalent utility principles," Statistics & Risk Modeling, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 1-25, July.
    49. Schoemaker, Paul J H, 1982. "The Expected Utility Model: Its Variants, Purposes, Evidence and Limitations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 529-563, June.
    50. Scheffman, D T, 1975. "A Definition of Generalized Correlation and Its Application for Portfolio Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 13(2), pages 277-286, June.
    51. Chris Starmer, 2000. "Developments in Non-expected Utility Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 332-382, June.
    52. Larry G. Epstein & Stephen M. Tanny, 1980. "Increasing Generalized Correlation: A Definition and Some Economic Consequences," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 13(1), pages 16-34, February.
    53. Rockafellar, R. Tyrrell & Uryasev, Stanislav, 2002. "Conditional value-at-risk for general loss distributions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(7), pages 1443-1471, July.
    54. Wang, Shaun S. & Young, Virginia R. & Panjer, Harry H., 1997. "Axiomatic characterization of insurance prices," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 173-183, November.
    55. Gabriel Frahm & Christof Wiechers, 2013. "A Diversification Measure for Portfolios of Risky Assets," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Jonathan A. Batten & Peter MacKay & Niklas Wagner (ed.), Advances in Financial Risk Management, chapter 13, pages 312-330, Palgrave Macmillan.
    56. Geissel Sebastian & Sass Jörn & Seifried Frank Thomas, 2018. "Optimal expected utility risk measures," Statistics & Risk Modeling, De Gruyter, vol. 35(1-2), pages 73-87, January.
    57. Scott F. Richard, 1975. "Multivariate Risk Aversion, Utility Independence and Separable Utility Functions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 12-21, September.
    58. Benoît Carmichael & Gilles Boevi Koumou & Kevin Moran, 2018. "Rao’s quadratic entropy and maximum diversification indexation," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 1017-1031, June.
    59. Hans Föllmer & Alexander Schied, 2002. "Convex measures of risk and trading constraints," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 429-447.
    60. Song, Yongsheng & Yan, Jia-An, 2009. "Risk measures with comonotonic subadditivity or convexity and respecting stochastic orders," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 459-465, December.
    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. Xia Han & Liyuan Lin & Ruodu Wang, 2023. "Diversification quotients based on VaR and ES," Papers 2301.03517, arXiv.org, revised May 2023.
    2. Han, Xia & Lin, Liyuan & Wang, Ruodu, 2023. "Diversification quotients based on VaR and ES," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 185-197.
    3. Marcelo Righi & Eduardo Horta & Marlon Moresco, 2024. "Set risk measures," Papers 2407.18687, arXiv.org.

    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. Gilles Boevi Koumou, 2020. "Diversification and portfolio theory: a review," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 34(3), pages 267-312, September.
    2. Denuit Michel & Dhaene Jan & Goovaerts Marc & Kaas Rob & Laeven Roger, 2006. "Risk measurement with equivalent utility principles," Statistics & Risk Modeling, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 1-25, July.
    3. Ruodu Wang & Ričardas Zitikis, 2021. "An Axiomatic Foundation for the Expected Shortfall," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1413-1429, March.
    4. Mario Fortin & Marcelin Joanis & Philippe Kabore & Luc Savard, 2022. "Determination of Quebec's Quarterly Real GDP and Analysis of the Business Cycle, 1948–1980," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 18(3), pages 261-288, November.
    5. Jaume Belles‐Sampera & Montserrat Guillén & Miguel Santolino, 2014. "Beyond Value‐at‐Risk: GlueVaR Distortion Risk Measures," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(1), pages 121-134, January.
    6. Steven Kou & Xianhua Peng & Chris C. Heyde, 2013. "External Risk Measures and Basel Accords," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 393-417, August.
    7. Tsanakas, Andreas, 2009. "To split or not to split: Capital allocation with convex risk measures," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 268-277, April.
    8. Furman, Edward & Wang, Ruodu & Zitikis, Ričardas, 2017. "Gini-type measures of risk and variability: Gini shortfall, capital allocations, and heavy-tailed risks," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 70-84.
    9. Enrico G. De Giorgi & Ola Mahmoud, 2016. "Diversification preferences in the theory of choice," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 39(2), pages 143-174, November.
    10. Goovaerts, Marc J. & Kaas, Rob & Laeven, Roger J.A., 2010. "Decision principles derived from risk measures," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 294-302, December.
    11. Tiantian Mao & Jun Cai, 2018. "Risk measures based on behavioural economics theory," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 367-393, April.
    12. Jaume Belles-Sampera & Montserrat Guillén & Miguel Santolino, 2013. "“Beyond Value-at-Risk: GlueVaR Distortion Risk Measures”," IREA Working Papers 201302, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Feb 2013.
    13. Andreas Tsanakas & Evangelia Desli, 2005. "Measurement and Pricing of Risk in Insurance Markets," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(6), pages 1653-1668, December.
    14. Ruodu Wang & Yunran Wei & Gordon E. Willmot, 2020. "Characterization, Robustness, and Aggregation of Signed Choquet Integrals," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 45(3), pages 993-1015, August.
    15. A. Ahmadi-Javid, 2012. "Entropic Value-at-Risk: A New Coherent Risk Measure," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 1105-1123, December.
    16. Furman, Edward & Zitikis, Ricardas, 2008. "Weighted risk capital allocations," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 263-269, October.
    17. Assa, Hirbod & Zimper, Alexander, 2018. "Preferences over all random variables: Incompatibility of convexity and continuity," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 71-83.
    18. Steven Kou & Xianhua Peng, 2016. "On the Measurement of Economic Tail Risk," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 1056-1072, October.
    19. Elisa Pagani, 2015. "Certainty Equivalent: Many Meanings of a Mean," Working Papers 24/2015, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    20. Belles-Sampera, Jaume & Merigó, José M. & Guillén, Montserrat & Santolino, Miguel, 2013. "The connection between distortion risk measures and ordered weighted averaging operators," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 411-420.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Portfolio theory; portfolio diversification; preference for diversification; correlation diversification; expected utility theory; dual theory.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    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:ris:crcrmw:2019_002. 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: Claire Boisvert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hecmtca.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.