Overconfidence and Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets

This paper investigates the relationship between market overconfidence and occurrence of stock-price bubbles. Sixty participants traded stocks in 10 experimental asset markets. Markets were constructed on the basis of subjects' overconfidence: The most overconfident subjects form high overconfidence markets and the least overconfident subjects low overconfidence markets. Prices in low overconfidence markets tend to track the fundamental asset value more accurately than prices in high overconfidence markets and are significantly lower and less volatile. Additionally, we observe significantly higher bubble measures and trading volume in high overconfidence markets. Two possible explanations for these differences are analyzed: While price expectations are significantly higher in high overconfidence markets, no differences in the average degree of risk aversion were detected.     

Investor Overconfidence in Experimental Asset Markets across Market States

Abstract

This study explores how individual overconfidence adjusts after receiving extreme feedback that either supports or contradicts previous decision-making when buying or selling stocks. We find that highly contradicting feedback causes overconfidence to vanish as confidence declines sharply while supportive signals cause overconfidence to increase. Further evidence suggests that strong feedback impulses are associated with higher investor disagreement, supporting prior hypotheses that investors interpret such impulses differently. We also find that methodologies that measure overconfidence in prediction tasks systematically overstate confidence scores as respondents tend to fail to internalize stated confidence intervals appropriately.     

On the Effects of Asset Purchase Programs on Emerging Stock Markets

ABSTRACT

It is well documented that there has been a relationship between stock markets and unconventional monetary policies. However, most research concentrates on developed economies and analyzes the effects of shocks from such polices on stock prices. This paper is different from this research in that we investigate the impact of surprises from the Fed’s and the ECB’s announcements on the stock returns and volatility in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using GARCH models. We find that a positive surprise associated with a fall in the U.S. Treasury yield causes an increase in ADX returns. We show significant effects of the ECB’s shocks on price returns. In particular, announcement that induces a decline in yield spreads in Italian sovereign bonds leads to higher stock prices. We also document a significant impact of surprises both by the Fed and ECB on volatility. However, the estimates are mixed. We note that volatility went down in response to the ECB’s policies, while they increased after the Fed’s asset purchases. Finally, when we distinguish surprises by their sign, the GJR-GARCH model estimates indicate that the effect on the volatility which is, perhaps surprisingly, symmetric for both types of news.     

Hindsight Bias and Individual Risk Attitude within the Context of Experimental Asset Markets

This paper investigates the robustness of hindsight bias in experimental asset markets, the time-invariance of the different experimental risk elicitation methods of certainty equivalents and binary lottery choices, and their correspondence. The results of our within-subject approach with 133 traders do not support the conjecture that hindsight bias is a general phenomenon. Furthermore, our findings challenge the presumption of time-stable risk preferences and of procedural invariance with respect to different experimental risk elicitation methods.     

Interdependence and Contagion in Global Asset Markets

We assess interdependence and contagion across three asset classes (bonds, stocks, and currencies) for over 60 economies over the period 1998–2011. Using a global VAR, we test for changes in the transmission mechanism—both within and cross‐market changes—during periods of global financial turbulence. Contagion effects within‐market are notable in Latin American and Emerging Asian equities. In addition, in times of financial crisis, we find that US equity shocks lead to risk aversion by investors in equities and currencies globally and in some emerging market bonds. Euro area shocks are significant mainly within the bond market.     

Rate‐of‐return Parity in Experimental Asset Markets*

This paper applies experimental methods to evaluate the completeness of arbitrage and rate‐of‐return parity in simultaneous asset markets in which the assets are denominated in different currencies. Two assets, which return uncertain, but known, dividends in each trading period, are traded over 20 periods, after which the asset has no value. Results indicate that risk‐neutral rate‐of‐return parity is a strong predictor of relative asset prices when assets have common expected dividends and the expected dividends have common variances. The predictive power of risk‐neutral rate‐of‐return parity is reduced as the assets become differentiated.     

The Limitations of Experimental Design: A Case Study Involving Monetary Incentive Effects in Laboratory Markets

We replicate an influential study of monetary incentive effects by Jamal and Sunder (1991) to illustrate the difficulties of drawing causal inferences from a treatment manipulation when other features of the experimental design vary simultaneously. We first show that the Jamal and Sunder (1991) conclusions hinge on one of their laboratory market sessions, conducted only within their fixed-pay condition, that is characterized by a thin market and asymmetric supply and demand curves. When we replicate this structure multiple times under both fixed pay and pay tied to performance, our findings do not support Jamal and Sunders (1991) conclusion about the incremental effects of performance-based compensation, suggesting that other features varied in that study likely account for their observed difference. Our ceteris paribus replication leaves us unable to offer any generalized conclusions about the effects of monetary incentives in other market structures, but the broader point is to illustrate that experimental designs that attempt to generalize effects by varying multiple features simultaneously can jeopardize the ability to draw causal inferences about the primary treatment manipulation.     

我国资产管理市场的主要问题与对策

近年来资产管理成为我国资本市场上的一个热门话题。本文所说的“资产管理”是指资产拥有者出于保值、增值或其他目的,而将其资产交由他人进行管理的行为。与资产拥有者的自我管理不同,这是一种建立在委托基础上的外部财产管理安排。我国金融改革中新生的四大金融资产管理公司进行的“资产管理”,是自行处置所购买的银行不良资产,因此,不属于本文所考察的资产管理范围。 由于持续的体制改革和快速的经济发展,我国社会财     

Information Markets and the Comovement of Asset Prices

Traditional asset pricing models predict that covariance between prices of different assets should be lower than what we observe in the data. This paper introduces markets for information that generate high price covariance within a rational expectations framework. When information is costly, rational investors only buy information about a subset of the assets. Because information production has high fixed costs, competitive producers charge more for low-demand information than for high-demand information. The low price of high-demand information makes investors want to purchase the same information that others are purchasing. When investors price assets using a common subset of information, news about one asset affects the other assets' prices; asset prices comove. The cross-sectional and time-series properties of comovement are consistent with this explanation.     

金融市场系统风险与资产证券化的相关性

美国金融市场的资产证券化使金融市场的系统风险陡增,并引发了席卷全球的金融危机。资产证券化增加金融市场系统风险的主要原因在于倒买倒卖的市场运作模式、资产支持的证券流动性不足以及资产证券化交易的复杂性所产生的负面效应。金融危机后应加强我国资产证券化金融监管工作,坚持以有限管制和间接管制为原则,减少直接干预;坚持慎重选择资产证券化类型,逐步推进资产证券化原则;坚持以规范的信息披露为原则,防范系统风险。     

Economic Data,Conventions, and Replication in Laboratory Asset Markets

Data extracted from naturally occurring markets and other economic environments often suffer from problems like data confounds and intercorrelations. We report results from a series of experimental markets that suggest some of the data problems can be overcome by using experimental techniques. We use predetermined (videotaped) draws to replicate results from prior research. This is contrary to the conventional wisdom in the literature, which holds that draws should be "live." Our results suggest that the price and allocation behavior of markets can be replicated using predetermined draws to initiate trading. Furthermore, the primary strength of the experimental method-control-is maintained.     

Asset Allocation and Information Overload: The Influence of Information Display,Asset Choice,and Investor Experience

This paper examines whether information overload might partially explain why defined contribution plan participants tend to follow the "path of least resistance" (Choi et al. [2002]) In two experiments, we test how three common differences among defined contribution plans (the number of investment choices offered, the similarity of the choices, and the display of the choices) lead to varying degrees of information overload and the probability of opting for the default. Notably, we control for the financial aptitude of each individual. The findings suggest that the success of certain plan features depends strongly on the financial background of the participant. We find that low-knowledge individuals opt for the default allocation more often than high-knowledge individuals (experiment 1: 20% versus 2%). The results emphasize the importance of plan design, especially the selection of plan defaults, and the need to improve the financial literacy of participants.     

Bidding and Overconfidence in Experimental Financial Markets

Overconfidence is a well-documented phenomenon in psychology. Psychologists define an overconfident individual as one who believes he has more accurate information than he actually does. Recently, behavioral economists have become interested in the implications of trader overconfidence for financial decision-making and the functioning of financial markets. To date, most financial market studies have been analytical in nature. These studies assume that traders are overconfident and model decision-making behavior accordingly. Rather than assuming the presence of overconfidence, we use experimental bidding data to determine the extent to which trader overconfidence exists, and what variables suggested by previous finance and psychology research relate to it. We find approximately 40% of subjects exhibited overconfidence. Variables that distinguish overconfident bidding from risk-averse and risk-neutral bidding include the traditional financial variables that explain bidding (expected value and standard deviation), non-traditional financial variables, and variables relating to the self-attribution bias and feedback. Contrary to what some analysts have suggested, experience did not reduce overconfidence.     

基于多银行贷款池的合成CDO设计

近年国际上资产证券化和信用衍生产品的发展为中小企业信贷风险分散和转移提供了现实可能性，通过构建最优的风险收益分配契约的多银行贷款资产组合进一步解决了证券化过程中的效率损失问题。本文设计、提出了基于多银行贷款组合的中小企业贷款合成CDO交易结构，能够有效剥离、转移和分散中小企业贷款信用风险，降低银行信贷资产风险集中度，降低监管资本成本，在风险分散、缓解信息不对称问题、降低交易成本等方面具有独特优势。     

Overreactions,Momentum, Liquidity,and Price Bubbles in Laboratory and Field Asset Markets

Laboratory asset markets provide an experimental setting in which to observe investor behavior. Over more than a decade, numerous studies have found that participants in laboratory experiments frequently drive asset prices far above fundamental value, after which the prices crash. This bubble-and-crash behavior is robust to variations in a number of variables, including liquidity (the amount of cash available relative to the value of the assets being traded), short-selling, certainty or uncertainty of dividend payments, brokerage fees, capital gains taxes, buying on margin, and others.

This paper attempts to model the behavior of asset prices in experimental settings by proposing a "momentum model" of asset price changes. The model assumes that investors follow a combination of two factors when setting prices: fundamental value, and the recent price trend. The predictions of the model, while still far from perfect, are superior to those of a rational expectations model, in which traders consider only fundamental value. In particular, the momentum model predicts that higher levels of liquidity lead to larger price bubbles, a result that is confirmed in the experiments. The similarity between laboratory results and data from field (real-world) markets suggests that the momentum model may be applicable there as well.     

Capacity Choices and Price Competition in Experimental Markets

We report on experimental duopoly markets with heterogeneous goods. In these markets, sellers first choose capacities and then prices. While capacities remain fixed for either five or ten periods, prices have to be chosen in every period. The experiments starts with two sets of exogenously predetermined capacities. Independently of the distribution of capacities is, a unique pure-strategy in prices is subgame perfect. In equilibrium, capacities should correspond to the Cournot prediction. Given capacities, price-setting behavior is in general consistent with the theory. Average capacities converge above the Cournot level. Capacities converge at the industry level but are somewhat dispersed. Sellers rarely manage to cooperate.     

流动性与资产定价:基于我国股市资产换手率与预期收益的实证研究

流动性与资产定价是目前金融研究的热点之一 (O’Hara,2 0 0 3 )。本文通过检验交易频率零假设和交易成本备择假设 ,深入分析我国股市流动性与资产定价的理论与经验关系 ,发现 :我国股市存在显著的流动性溢价 ,换手率低、交易成本高且流动性小的资产具有较高的预期收益 ;产生流动性溢价的原因是交易成本而不是交易频率 ;与国外股市相似 ,小企业收益率高于大企业 ,价值股收益率高于成长股。因此 ,我国股市并非令人无法捉摸 ,流动性、规模和价值效应都是资产定价的因素     

Secondary Capital Markets, Long-Run Growth, and the Term Structure of Asset Yields

An endogenous growth model is presented in which production uses a vector of capital inputs. Technologies for creating capital of different types vary by gestation period and productivity. Ownership of gestating capital must be "rolled over" in secondary capital markets in which transactions are costly. We study how reductions in transactions costs affect the equilibrium growth rate, the rate of return on saving, the volume of activity in secondary capital markets, and the term structure of asset yields. We give conditions under which reductions in transactions costs result in higher or lower growth rates.