The large spread between equity returns and risk-free rates (the "equity premium puzzle") has been the subject of intense debate. Two main families of models claim to solve this puzzle: habit-formation models and loss-aversion models. The goal of this paper is to assess empirically which of them...

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...

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...

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...

Standard consumption-based models typically fail in pricing asset returns. In a famous seminal paper, Mehra and Prescott (1985), using a standard consumption model, prove the presence of a puzzle (i.e. equity premium puzzle). The recent financial literature still has to provide a convincing...

This paper explores the implications of a novel class of preferences for the behavior of asset prices. Following a suggestion by Marshall (1920), we entertain the possibility that people derive utility not only from consumption, but also from the very act of saving. These “saving-based”...

This paper assessed 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 employs a standard asset pricing model to derive theoretical volatility measures in a setting that allows for varying degrees of investor information about the dividend process. We show that the volatility of the price–dividend ratio increases monotonically with investor information...

Purpose – This paper seeks to reconsider the Euler equation of the Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM), to derive a regression-based model to test it, and to present evidence that the model is consistent with reasonable values for the coefficient of relative risk aversion (CRRA)....

I study the effect of heterogeneous beliefs about asset prices on the long-term behavior of financial markets. Starting from the ideas of Abreu and Brunnermeier (2003), a two-dimensional system of differential equations is developed. The first dynamic variable is the asset price growth rate. The...