This paper describes an empirical study of shortfall optimization with Barra Extreme Risk. We compare minimum shortfall to minimum variance portfolios in the US, UK, and Japanese equity markets using Barra Style Factors (Value, Growth, Momentum, etc.). We show that minimizing shortfall generally...

Risk-only investment strategies have been growing in popularity as traditional investment strategies have fallen short of return targets over the last decade. However, risk-based investors should be aware of four things. First, theoretical considerations and empirical studies show that...

Diversification is a fundamental concept in economics, decision theory, and finance, but the way in which it is implemented in the real world varies greatly. This paper asks how elementary the notion of diversification is by studying whether children apply it as a choice heuristic. We report on...

Diversification is a fundamental concept in economics, decision theory and finance. It also lies at the core of the Darwinian evolution argument, and diversifying behavior known as bet-hedging has been widely documented in other species. The central premise of this paper is that attitudes...

Diversification is a fundamental concept in economics, finance, and decision theory. This paper argues that decision makers assign an intrinsic value to the notion of diversification and that this “willingness to pay” is driven by risk aversion and loss aversion. In an experimental study...

The principle of indifference states that events should be assigned equal probabilities if no reason can be given for regarding one event as more likely than another. This paper provides a normative argument for the principle of indifference based on a new formal model of decision under...