Market incompleteness and the equity premium puzzle: Evidence from state-level data

Kris Jacobs, Stephane Pallage and Michel Robe

Journal of Banking & Finance, 2013, vol. 37, issue 2, 378-388

Abstract: This paper investigates the importance of market incompleteness by comparing the rates of risk aversion estimated from complete and incomplete markets environments. For the incomplete-markets case, we use consumption data for the 50 US states. We find that the rate of risk aversion under the incomplete-markets setup is much lower. Furthermore, including the second and third moments of the cross-sectional distribution of consumption growth in the pricing kernel lowers the estimate of risk aversion. These findings suggest that market incompleteness ought to be seen as an important component of solutions to the equity premium puzzle.

Keywords: Heterogeneity; Idiosyncratic consumption risk; Incomplete markets; Consumption-based asset pricing model; Risk aversion; Equity premium puzzle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Market Incompleteness and the Equity Premium Puzzle: Evidence from State-Level Data (2005)
Working Paper: Market Incompleteness and the Equity Premium Puzzle: Evidence from State-Level Data (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:378-388

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2012.09.005

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