Consumption-Based Asset Pricing with Higher Cumulants

Abstract

I extend the Epstein--Zin-lognormal consumption-based asset-pricing model to allow for general i.i.d. consumption growth. Information about the higher moments--equivalently, cumulants--of consumption growth is encoded in the cumulant-generating function. I use the framework to analyse economies with rare disasters, and argue that the importance of such disasters is a double-edged sword: parameters that govern the frequency and sizes of rare disasters are critically important for asset pricing, but extremely hard to calibrate. I show how to sidestep this issue by using observable asset prices to make inferences without having to estimate higher moments of the underlying consumption process. Extensions of the model allow consumption to diverge from dividends, and for non-i.i.d. consumption growth. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.