This paper considers a model of reference-dependent utility in which the individual makes a conscious choice of her reference point for future consumption. The model incorporates the combination of loss aversion and anticipatory utility as competing forces in the determination of the optimal...

We examine asset prices in a representative-agent model of general equilibrium. Assuming only that individuals are risk averse, we determine conditions on the changes in asset risk that are both necessary and sufficient for the asset price to fall. We show that these conditions neither imply,...

This paper assesses the quantitative impact of ambiguity on historically observed financial asset returns and growth rates. The single agent, in a dynamic exchange economy, treats the conditional uncertainty about the consumption and dividends next period as ambiguous. We calibrate the agent's...

This paper shows the success of valuation risk-time‐preference shocks in Epstein-Zin utility-in resolving asset pricing puzzles rests sensitively on the way it is introduced. The specification used in the literature is at odds with several desirable properties of recursive preferences because...

The rare disaster hypothesis suggests that the extraordinarily high postwar U.S. equity premium resulted because investors ex ante demanded compensations for unlikely but calamitous risks that they happened not to incur. While convincing in theory, empirical tests of the rare disaster...

I generalize the long-run risks (LRR) model of Bansal and Yaron (2004) by incorporating recursive smooth ambiguity aversion preferences from Klibanoff et al. (2005, 2009) and time-varying ambiguity. Relative to the Bansal-Yaron model, the generalized LRR model is as tractable but more flexible...

Since the equity premium as well as the risk-free rate puzzle question the concepts central to financial and economic modeling, we apply behavioral decision theory to asset pricing in view of solving these puzzles. U.S. stock market data for the period 1960-2003 and German stock market data for...

Returns to both traditional and risk-managed momentum strategies are non-normal, reducing the efficacy of the Sharpe ratio as an evaluation tool. To account for the higher moments of the return distribution, we evaluate momentum using the framework of myopic loss aversion. Under this framework,...

We evaluate whether machine learning methods can better model excess portfolio returns compared to the standard regression-based strategies generally used in the finance and econometric literature. We examine 17 benchmark factor model specifications based on Expected Utility Theory and theory...

In standard production models wage volatility is far too high and equity volatility is far too low. A simple modification - sticky wages due to infrequent resetting together with a CES production function - leads to both (i) smoother wages and (ii) higher equity volatility. Furthermore, the...