Asset Pricing with Status Risk

Yoel Krasny ()
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Yoel Krasny: Stern School of Business, New York University, USA

Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), 2011, vol. 01, issue 03, 495-549

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of status-seeking considerations on investors' portfolio choices and asset prices in a general equilibrium setting. The economy studied in this paper consists of traditional ("Markowitz") investors as well as status-seekers who are concerned about relative wealth. The model highlights the strategic and interdependent nature of portfolio selection in such a setting: Low-status investors look for portfolio choices that maximize their chances of moving up the ladder while high-status investors look to maintain the status quo and hedge against these choices of the low-status investors. In equilibrium, asset returns obey a novel two-factor model in which one factor is the traditional market factor and the other is a particular "high volatility factor" that does not appear to have been identified so far in the theoretical or empirical literature. This two-factor model found significant support when tested with stock market data. Of particular interest is that the model and the empirical results attribute the low returns on idiosyncratic volatility stocks to their covariance with the portfolio of highly volatile stocks held by investors with relatively low status.

Keywords: Idiosyncratic risk; status concerns; portfolio choice; asset pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1142/S2010139211000134

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