Asset Pricing and Optimal Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Illiquid Durable Consumption Goods

Sanford Jay Grossman and Guy Laroque

No 2369, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We analyze a model of optimal consumption and portfolio selection in which consumption services are generated by holding a durable good. The durable good is illiquid in that a transaction cost must be paid when the good is sold. It is shown that optimal consumption is not a smooth function of wealth; it is optimal for the consumer to wait until a large change in wealth occurs before adjusting his consumption. As a consequence, the consumption based capital asset pricing model fails to hold. Nevertheless, it is shown that the standard, one factor, market portfolio based capital asset pricing model does hold in this environment. It is shown that the optimal durable level is characterized by three numbers (not random variables), say x, y, and z (where x < y < z). The consumer views the ratio of consumption to wealth (c/W) as his state variable. If this ratio is between x and z, then he does not sell the durable. If c/W is less than x or greater than z, then he sells his durable and buys a new durable of size S so that S/W = y. Thus y is his "target" level of c/W. If the stock market moves up enough so that c/W falls below x, then he sells his small durable to buy a larger durable. However, there will be many changes in the value of his wealth for which c/W stays between x and z, and thus consumption does not change. Numerical simulations show that small transactions costs can make consumption changes occur very infrequently. Further, the effect of transactions costs on the demand for risky assets is substantial.

Date: 1988-06
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2369.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html.

Related works:
Working Paper: Asset Pricing and Optimal Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Illiquid Durable Consumption Goods (2003)
Journal Article: Asset Pricing and Optimal Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Illiquid Durable Consumption Goods (1990)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2369

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2369
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Address: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().