1,720,979 research outputs found
Borrowing Constraints, Portfolio Choice, and Precautionary Motives: Theoretical Predictions and Empirical Complications
Get PDFThis paper studies effects of two classes of borrowing constraints, collateral- and income-based, on wealth accumulation, portfolio behavior and on precautionary motives. We examine the sensitivity of solutions to tightness of constraints, education level, and preference parameters. The models are calibrated using the 1992 Survey of Consumer Finances. The idea that constrained households engage in less borrowing and less holding of risky assets than desired is borne out for income-based constraints but not necessarily for constraints where assets also serve as collateral. The commonly used nonnegativity constraint on wealth turns out to be a very special case among collateral constraints: not only is constrained consumption equal to income but precautionary wealth holding is zero. Income-based constraints reverse the sign of precautionary effects on holdings of risky assets, and so do relatively tight collateral constraints. The latter reverse the sign of precautionary effects on borrowing, as well. Precautionary effects on wealth holding and on borrowing are smaller when income-based constraints are binding, though not necessarily so for collateral constraints. Results suggest that inclusion of constrained households in a sample of unconstrained ones is quite likely when using standard wealth-level cutoffs for sample splitting, and that it tends to bias empirically observed precautionary effects on wealth downwards. Estimated precautionary effects on risky assets and on borrowing may even be biased towards zero. These findings may help explain the failure of recent empirical studies to uncover sizeable precautionary effects on wealth and on portfolio composition.Precautionary saving, borrowing constraints, household portfolios
Borrowing Constraints, Portfolio Choice, and Precautionary
Get PDFThis paper studies effects of two classes of borrowing constraints, collateral- and income-based, on wealth accumulation, portfolio behavior and on precautionary motives. We examine the sensitivity of solutions to tightness of constraints, education level, and preference parameters. The models are calibrated using the 1992 Survey of Consumer Finances. The idea that constrained households engage in less borrowing and less holding of risky assets than desired is borne out for income-based constraints but not necessarily for constraints where assets also serve as collateral. The commonly used nonnegativity constraint on wealth turns out to be a very special case among collateral constraints: not only is constrained consumption equal to income but precautionary wealth holding is zero. Income-based constraints reverse the sign of precautionary effects on holdings of risky assets, and so do relatively tight collateral constraints. The latter reverse the sign of precautionary effects on borrowing, as well. Precautionary effects on wealth holding and on borrowing are smaller when income-based constraints are binding, though not necessarily so for collateral constraints. Results suggest that inclusion of constrained households in a sample of unconstrained ones is quite likely when using standard wealth-level cutoffs for sample splitting, and that it tends to bias empirically observed precautionary effects on wealth downwards. Estimated precautionary effects on risky assets and on borrowing may even be biased towards zero. These findings may help explain the failure of recent empirical studies to uncover sizeable precautionary effects on wealth and on portfolio composition.Precautionary saving, borrowing constraints, household portfolios
Non-expected Utility, Saving, and Portfolios
Get PDFExisting findings suggest that standard, frictionless, expected-utility models have difficulty accounting for average and for median holdings of wealth and of risky assets, partly as a result of the largely unexplained limited proportion of stockholders among households. We analyze life-cycle wealth accumulation and portfolio choice under career uncertainty and quantifiable departures from expected utility maximization. Our specification nests expected utility and three types of non-expected utility: (i) Kreps-Porteus preferences that disentangle risk aversion from elasticity of substitution, (ii) Yaari's Dual Theory of Choice, and (iii) Quiggin's Rank-dependent Utility. Specifications (ii) and (iii) exhibit "first-order" risk aversion and kinked indifference curves. Solution of such models under multiple sources of risk presents conceptual and computational difficulties. We introduce a notion of equilibrium and a computational algorithm appropriate for such setups. Computed wealth and stockholding, based on calibrated income processes for three education categories, are compared to the 1992 Survey of Consumer Finances. Rank-dependent utility enhances the importance of precautionary effects. Contrary to priors in the literature, solutions are not typically at kinks; neither kinks nor actual solutions involve zero stockholding when income risk is recognized; and yet predictions about average wealth and risky assets tend to improve for all education categories. Mere disentangling of risk aversion from elasticity has small effects, while dual theory predictions are farther from the data and the signs of precautionary effects are reversed.precautionary motives, non-expected utility, first-order risk aversion, portfolio choice, saving
Financial variables and real activity in Canada
No full textIn this paper we utilize Canadian and U.S. data to investigate the relationship between financial market variables (Canadian and U.S.) and Canadian output growth, using a non-parametric technique. The financial variables examined are those that are often associated with future output growth, namely, stock prices, interest rates, interest rate spreads and monetary aggregates. Our results show that as the number of autocovariances that are assigned a non-zero weight increases, the feedback from selected Canadian or U.S. financial variables to future Canadian output growth increases. In particular, we find that stock prices as well as yield spreads and monetary aggregates are useful predictors of output growth. This is in line with earlier parametric studies in the literature that find these variables to be good predictors of economic activity.
Forthcoming in the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance
No full textAbstract: This paper investigates the link between real stock price changes and economic growth. We develop a simple growth model, which presents the relationship between real stock prices and output. Evidence from the G-7 economies by use of the VAR methodology shows that real stock price changes and output growth are strongly related, as predicted by the theoretical model. The bivariate framework also provides useful information for understanding the response of economic growth and real stock prices to external shocks
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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