Habit Formation And Lifetime Portfolio Selection

The presence of an internal habit, interpreted as a minimum acceptable lifestyle, has important consequences for portfolio choice of agents. The risk aversion of agents varies endogenously through the life cycle depending on evolution of the agent's habit. For the case where total wealth is capitalized, I obtain analytical solutions for the value and policy functions in a continuous time finite horizon model. There is an interesting life cycle effect which I highlight. Younger agents need to sustain their habits for a longer horizon, thereby making them more risk averse and inducing them to optimally hold more conservative portfolios, as compared to older agents who have fewer outstanding periods, hence worry less about sustaining future habits and hold more aggressive portfolios. The model is applied to study portfolio decisions of retired households, in contrast to the standard model it is able to explain the data.

Motivated by the success of internal habit formation preferences in explaining asset pricing puzzles, we introduce these preferences in a life-cycle model of consumption and portfolio choice with liquidity constraints, undiversifiable labor income risk and stock-market participation costs. In contrast to the initial motivation, we find that the model is not able to simultaneously match two very important stylized facts: A low stock market participation rate, and moderate equity holdings for those households that do invest in stocks. Habit formation increases wealth accumulation because the intertemporal consumption smoothing motive is stronger. As a result, households start participating in the stock market very early in life, and invest their portfolios almost fully in stocks. Therefore, we conclude that, with respect to its ability to match the empirical evidence on asset allocation behavior, the internal habit formation model is dominated by its time-separable utility counterpart.

This collection of original articles—8 years in the making—shines a bright light on recent advances in financial econometrics. From a survey of mathematical and statistical tools for understanding nonlinear Markov processes to an exploration of the time-series evolution of the risk-return tradeoff for stock market investment, noted scholars Yacine Aït-Sahalia and Lars Peter Hansen benchmark the current state of knowledge while contributors build a framework for its growth. Whether in the presence of statistical uncertainty or the proven advantages and limitations of value at risk models, readers will discover that they can set few constraints on the value of this long-awaited volume. Presents a broad survey of current research—from local characterizations of the Markov process dynamics to financial market trading activity Contributors include Nobel Laureate Robert Engle and leading econometricians Offers a clarity of method and explanation unavailable in other financial econometrics collections

We study the dynamic consumption and portfolio choice of an investor who has habit formation in preferences and access to a complete financial market. For general, possibly non-Markov, dynamics of market prices, we provide an exact characterization of the optimal behavior in terms of two relatively simple and intuitively interpretable stochastic processes. We study in more detail the optimal strategies in two concrete examples of time-varying investment opportunities. Firstly, we derive a closed-form solution of the optimal consumption and portfolio choice with mean-reverting stock returns. Secondly, with Cox-Ingersoll-Ross interest rate dynamics we can express the optimal strategies in terms of the solution to a partial differential equation, which has an explicit solution for time-additive preferences, but not with habit formation. Our numerical examples show that, while hedging demands for various assets are affected differently by habit persistence, the main effect on relative asset allocations stems from the fact that some assets (bonds and cash) are better investment objects than others (stocks) when it comes to ensuring that future consumption will not fall below the habit level. The implications of habit persistence in models with labor income are also addressed.

A “very practical” guide for finance professionals on creating and managing retirement portfolios (Journal of Pensions, Economics and Finance). Retirement is one of the most important parts of the financial planning process, yet only two percent of financial advisors describe themselves as competent at it. But the demand is only growing as baby boomers move toward this new phase of life. It is imperative that financial advisors be equipped and ready. That's why Michael Zwecher—a leading expert on retirement income—has created Retirement Portfolios, which: Examines how portfolios should be prepped in advance so that the transition from “working” portfolio to retirement portfolio is smooth and seamless Outlines how to create a portfolio that will provide income, continue to generate growth, and protect assets from disaster Details the differences in managing a retirement portfolio versus managing portfolios during asset accumulation years The ability to create appropriate retirement portfolios and manage their risks are skills you must possess to be an effective financial advisor. Retirement Portfolios will help you develop these essential skills and gain a better understanding of the entire process.

We investigate the optimal portfolio and consumption policies for a finite-horizon investor in a life-cycle model with habit formation and inflation risk. We consider two types of habit investors: one forms habit based on real past consumption, while the other on nominal past consumption, which is motivated by money illusion. The optimal strategy is expressed explicitly in terms of the solution to a linear partial differential equation. We find that the effects of inflation on the optimal strategy depend on the type of habit investor, because it determines the risk profile of the hedge portfolio and subsistence portfolio. This dependence is robust to the incompleteness of the financial market.

Today all would agree that Mexico and the United States have never been closer--that the fates of the two republics are intertwined. Mexico has become an intimate part of life in almost every community in the United States, through immigration, imported produce, business ties, or illegal drugs. It is less a neighbor than a sibling; no matter what our differences, it is intricately a part of our existence. In the fully updated second edition of Mexico: What Everyone Needs to Know(R), Roderic Ai Camp gives readers the most essential information about our sister republic to the south. Camp organizes chapters around major themes--security and violence, economic development, foreign relations, the colonial heritage, and more. He asks questions that take us beyond the headlines: Why does Mexico have so much drug violence? What was the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement? How democratic is Mexico? Who were Benito Juarez and Pancho Villa? What is the PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party)? The answers are sometimes surprising. Despite ratification of NAFTA, for example, Mexico has fallen behind Brazil and Chile in economic growth and rates of poverty. Camp explains that lack of labor flexibility, along with low levels of transparency and high levels of corruption, make Mexico less competitive than some other Latin American countries. The drug trade, of course, enhances corruption and feeds on poverty; approximately 450,000 Mexicans now work in this sector. Brisk, clear, and informed, Mexico: What Everyone Needs To Know(R) offers a valuable primer for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of our neighbor to the South. Links to video interviews with prominent Mexicans appear throughout the text. The videos can be accessed at through The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History at http: //latinamericanhistory.oxfordre.com/page/videos/

This paper uses six waves of the Bank of Italy Survey of Households Income and Wealth to explore the dynamics of asset portfolio ownership. The household asset portfolio decision is a choice among discrete alternatives, and I model the problem in a multinomial framework. I focus on a particularly important feature of household portfolio behavior: the infrequency of portfolio allocation changes. I find evidence of strong unobserved heterogeneity through time-varying error components, which I interpret as taste persistence in both the risky and safe asset participation decisions. I estimate the model using the method of maximum smoothly simulated likelihood.