Jensen’s Inequality in Finance

Samih Azar ()

International Advances in Economic Research, 2008, vol. 14, issue 4, 433-440

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to measure the size and the statistical significance of three inequalities in the field of financial economics. The three are variants of Jensen’s inequality. The first inequality is a comparison of the expected value of a ratio to the ratio of the expected value, a problem that arises in pricing foreign exchange rates. The second is a comparison of the log of the expected value to the expected value of the log, a problem that arises in testing forward market efficiency, money demand, production functions, and trade gravity models. The third is a comparison of the expected utility to the utility of the expected value, and helps in determining the importance of the expected utility paradigm, and the magnitude of the equity risk premium. The methodology used is by simulation of random normal variables, thereby introducing sampling error. Despite this sampling error the conclusion is general: all three inequalities are economically material, and stand statistically as inequalities. The major conclusion is that Jensen’s inequality is not a theoretical and superfluous exercise in finance as some have advocated. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2008

Keywords: Jensen’s inequality; Concave and convex functions; Foreign exchange markets; Expected utility; Simulation of random normal variables; Equity risk premium; Power functions; CCAPM; D81; E44; F31; C15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11294-008-9172-9

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