Individual Preferences, Monetary Gambles and the Equity Premium / Nicholas Barberis, Ming Huang, Richard Thaler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barberis, Nicholas.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Huang, Ming.

Thaler, Richard.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w9997.

NBER working paper series no. w9997

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2003.

Summary:

We argue that narrow framing, whereby an agent who is offered a new gamble evaluates that gamble in isolation, separately from other risks she already faces, may be a more important feature of decision-making under risk than previously realized. To demonstrate this, we present evidence on typical attitudes to independent monetary gambles with both large and small stakes and show that across a wide range of utility functions, including all expected utility and many non-expected utility specifications, the only ones that can easily capture these attitudes are precisely those exhibiting narrow framing. Our analysis also makes predictions about the kinds of preferences that might be able to address the stock market participation and equity premium puzzles. We illustrate these predictions in simple portfolio choice and equilibrium settings.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2003.