Diverse Beliefs and Time Variability of Risk Premia

Mordecai Kurz and Maurizio Motolese (maurizio.motolese@unicatt.it)

No 06-044, Discussion Papers from Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This work presents a theoretical and empirical evaluation of the role of market belief in the structure of risk premia. Our main result is that fluctuations in market belief are large contributors to the time variability of risk premia. On average, the risk premium on holding Federal Funds Futures and 3-month and 6-month Treasury Bills for 6-12 months is about 40-60 basis points. We show that over 50% of the time market beliefs contribute more than 25-30 basis points to the premium. Moreover, the time variability of market belief is so large that this contribution is frequently larger than 50 basis points. As to the structure of the premium we show that when the market holds abnormally favorable belief about an asset’s future payoffs the market views the long position as less risky and hence the risk premium on that asset declines. Generalizing to the market as a whole we show that periods of market optimism (i.e. bull markets) are periods when the market risk assessment falls while in periods of pessimism the market’s risk assessment rises. That is, fluctuations in risk premia are inversely related to the degree of market optimism about future prospects of asset payoffs.

Keywords: Risk premium; heterogenous beliefs; market state of belief; asset pricing; Bayesian learning; updating beliefs; Rational Beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 D83 D84 E27 G12 G14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Diverse beliefs and time variability of risk premia (2011)
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