This paper investigates the uncertainty in variance and covariance of asset returns. It is commonly believed that these second moments can be estimated very accurately. However, time varying volatility and nonnormality of asset returns can lead to imprecise variance estimates. Using CRSP value...

We solve in closed form the optimal consumption / portfolio choice problem for the class of isoelastic utility functions under incomplete information about the mean return of the stock price. Our approach consists in converting the original investor's problem into an equivalent program where the...

This paper investigates the uncertainty in variance and covariance of asset returns. It is commonly believed that these second moments can be estimated very accurately. However, time varying volatility and nonnormality of asset returns can lead to imprecise variance estimates. Using CRSP value...

Money managers are rewarded for increasing the value of assets under management, and predominantly so in the mutual fund industry. This gives the manager an implicit incentive to exploit the well-documented positive fund-flows to relative-performance relationship by manipulating her risk...

Myopic loss aversion has been used to explain why a high equity premium might be consistent with plausible levels of risk aversion. The intuition is that it plays the role of high risk aversion in portfolio choice. But if so, should these agents not perceive larger gains from international...

To assess the potential of incomplete consumption insurance for explaining the equity premium and the risk-free rate of return, we use a Taylor series expansion of the individual's marginal utility of consumption around the conditional expectation of consumption and derive an approximate...

This paper applies recent tests of stochastic dominance of several orders proposed by Linton, Maasoumi and Whang (2003) to reexamine the equity premium puzzle. An advantage of this nonparametric framework is that it provides a means to assess whether the existence of a premium is due to an...

This paper explores the quantitative impact of the Baby Boom on stock and bond returns. It constructs a neoclassical growth model with overlapping generations, in which agents make a portfolio decision over risky capital and safe bonds in zero net supply. The model has exogenous technology and...

In this article we construct a model in which agents exhibit preference for ownership with respect to a durable (house). Ownership is modeled as a continuous function of debt service normalized by the price of the house. We study the utility optimization problem of an investor not endowed with...

I develop a Markov model of samrt money chasing past winning funds while taking into account associated costs. The model also allows market capital entry and exit. The steady-state capital allocations re derived using constant transition probabilities. The results sugget that down side risk is...