Financial Innovation and Asset Price Volatility

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2012
Volume: 102
Issue: 3
Pages: 147-51

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We compare asset prices in an overlapping generations model for incomplete and complete markets. Individuals within a generational cohort have heterogeneous beliefs about future states of the economy and thus would like to make bets against each other. In the incomplete-markets economy, agents cannot make such bets. Asset price volatility is very small. The situation changes dramatically when markets are completed through financial innovations as the set of available securities now allows agents with different beliefs to place bets against each other. Wealth shifts across agents and generations. Such changes in the wealth distribution lead to substantial asset price volatility.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:102:y:2012:i:3:p:147-51
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25