This paper introduces a model-free decomposition of S&P 500 forward market index returns in terms of realized and implied dispersion, downside, and tail risk using option portfolios. The decomposition lends itself by construction to learn about the different sources of risk in the market return,...

Motivated by individuals' emotional response to risk at different time horizons, we model an 'anxious' agent - one who is more risk averse with respect to imminent risks than distant risks. Such preferences describe well-documented features of 1) individual behavior, 2) equilibrium prices, and...

This interdisciplinary paper explains how mathematical techniques of stochastic optimal control can be applied to the recent subprime mortgage crisis. Why did the financial markets fail to anticipate the recent debt crisis, despite the large literature in mathematical finance concerning optimal...

Most theories of risky choice postulate that a decision maker maximizes the expectation of a Bernoulli (or utility or similar) function. We tour 60 years of empirical search and conclude that no such functions have yet been found that are useful for out-of-sample prediction. Nor do we find...

This interdisciplinary paper explains how mathematical techniques of stochastic optimal control can be applied to the recent subprime mortgage crisis. Why did the financial markets fail to anticipate the recent debt crisis, despite the large literature in mathematical finance concerning optimal...

Many tests of asset pricing models address only the pricing predictions — but these pricing predictions rest on portfolio choice predictions which seem obviously wrong. This paper suggests a new approach to asset pricing and portfolio choices, based on unobserved heterogeneity. This approach...

This paper analyzes the Risk Appetite Index (RAI), a measure of investors� risk aversion proposed by Kumar and Persaud (2001, 2002). We show that the RAI distinguishes between risk and risk aversion only under theoretically restrictive assumptions on the distribution of returns and the...

This article examines whether the overall market risk, along with risks reflecting uncertainty related to the long–run dynamics of market cash flows (dividends) and discount rates (returns), price average returns on single–sorted portfolios in the Greek stock market. Our results...

Our article firstly examines to what extent empirical research confirms the model of decision making based on a stable utility function. To this end, we have summarised the fundamental theoretical correlations relating to risk appetite, then went on to present the main results of behavioural...

Leshno and Levy (2002) extend stochastic dominance (SD) theory to almost stochastic dominance (ASD) for {\it most} decision makers. When comparing any two prospects, Guo, et al.\ (2013) find that there will be ASD relationship even there is only very little difference in mean, variance,...