Rationalizing investors’ choices

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Mathematical Economics
Year: 2015
Volume: 59
Issue: C
Pages: 10-23

Authors (3)

Bernard, Carole (not in RePEc) Chen, Jit Seng (not in RePEc) Vanduffel, Steven (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

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

Abstract

Assuming that agents’ preferences satisfy first-order stochastic dominance, we show how the Expected Utility paradigm can rationalize all optimal investment choices: the optimal investment strategy in any behavioral law-invariant (state-independent) setting corresponds to the optimum for an expected utility maximizer with an explicitly derived concave non-decreasing utility function. This result enables us to infer the utility and risk aversion of agents from their investment choice in a non-parametric way. We relate the property of decreasing absolute risk aversion (DARA) to distributional properties of the terminal wealth and of the financial market. Specifically, we show that DARA is equivalent to a demand for a terminal wealth that has more spread than the opposite of the log pricing kernel at the investment horizon.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:mateco:v:59:y:2015:i:c:p:10-23
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-29