36 research outputs found
Whither Capitalism? Financial externalities and crisis
As with global warming, so with financial crises â externalities have a lot to answer for. We
look at three of them. First the financial accelerator due to âfire salesâ of collateral assets -- a
form of pecuniary externality that leads to liquidity being undervalued. Second the ârisk-
shiftingâ behaviour of highly-levered financial institutions who keep the upside of risky
investment while passing the downside to others thanks to limited liability. Finally, the
network externality where the structure of the financial industry helps propagate shocks
around the system unless this is checked by some form of circuit breaker, or âring-fenceâ.
The contrast between crisis-induced Great Recession and its aftermath of slow growth in the
West and the rapid - and (so far) sustained - growth in the East suggests that successful
economic progress may depend on how well these externalities are managed
High frequency trading strategies, market fragility and price spikes: an agent based model perspective
Given recent requirements for ensuring the robustness of algorithmic trading strategies laid out in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II, this paper proposes a novel agent-based simulation for exploring algorithmic trading strategies. Five different types of agents are present in the market. The statistical properties of the simulated market are compared with equity market depth data from the Chi-X exchange and found to be significantly similar. The model is able to reproduce a number of stylised market properties including: clustered volatility, autocorrelation of returns, long memory in order flow, concave price impact and the presence of extreme price events. The results are found to be insensitive to reasonable parameter variations
Hyperbolic discounting is rational: Valuing the far future with uncertain discount rates
Conventional economics supposes that agents value the present vs. the future using an exponential discounting function. In contrast, experiments with animals and humans suggest that agents are better described as hyperbolic discounters, whose discount function decays much more slowly at large times, as a power law. This is generally regarded as being time inconsistent or irrational. We show that when agents cannot be sure of their own future one-period discount rates, then hyperbolic discounting can become rational and exponential discounting irrational. This has important implications for environmental economics, as it implies a much larger weight for the far future
The virtues and vices of equilibrium and the future of financial economics
The use of equilibrium models in economics springs from the desire for parsimonious models of economic phenomena that take human reasoning into account. This approach has been the cornerstone of modern economic theory. We explain why this is so, extolling the virtues of equilibrium theory; then we present a critique and describe why this approach is inherently limited, and why economics needs to move in new directions if it is to continue to make progress. We stress that this shouldn't be a question of dogma, but should be resolved empirically. There are situations where equilibrium models provide useful predictions and there are situations where they can never provide useful predictions. There are also many situations where the jury is still out, i.e., where so far they fail to provide a good description of the world, but where proper extensions might change this. Our goal is to convince the skeptics that equilibrium models can be useful, but also to make traditional economists more aware of the limitations of equilibrium models. We sketch some alternative approaches and discuss why they should play an important role in future research in economics
The virtues and vices of equilibrium and the future of financial economics
The use of equilibrium models in economics springs from the desire for parsimonious models of economic phenomena that take human reasoning into account. This approach has been the cornerstone of modern economic theory. We explain why this is so, extolling the virtues of equilibrium theory; then we present a critique and describe why this approach is inherently limited, and why economics needs to move in new directions if it is to continue to make progress. We stress that this shouldn't be a question of dogma, but should be resolved empirically. There are situations where equilibrium models provide useful predictions and there are situations where they can never provide useful predictions. There are also many situations where the jury is still out, i.e., where so far they fail to provide a good description of the world, but where proper extensions might change this. Our goal is to convince the skeptics that equilibrium models can be useful, but also to make traditional economists more aware of the limitations of equilibrium models. We sketch some alternative approaches and discuss why they should play an important role in future research in economics
Hyperbolic Discounting Is Rational: Valuing the Far Future with Uncertain Discount Rates
Conventional economics supposes that agents value the present vs.
the future using an exponential discounting function. In contrast,
experiments with animals and humans suggest that agents are better described
as hyperbolic discounters, whose discount function decays much more slowly
at large times, as a power law. This is generally regarded as being time
inconsistent or irrational. We show that when agents cannot be sure of their
own future one-period discount rates, then hyperbolic discounting can become
rational and exponential discounting irrational. This has important
implications for environmental economics, as it implies a much larger weight
for the far future
The virtues and vices of equilibrium and the future of financial economics
The use of equilibrium models in economics springs from the desire for
parsimonious models of economic phenomena that take human reasoning into
account. This approach has been the cornerstone of modern economic theory. We
explain why this is so, extolling the virtues of equilibrium theory; then we
present a critique and describe why this approach is inherently limited, and
why economics needs to move in new directions if it is to continue to make
progress. We stress that this shouldn't be a question of dogma, but should be
resolved empirically. There are situations where equilibrium models provide
useful predictions and there are situations where they can never provide useful
predictions. There are also many situations where the jury is still out, i.e.,
where so far they fail to provide a good description of the world, but where
proper extensions might change this. Our goal is to convince the skeptics that
equilibrium models can be useful, but also to make traditional economists more
aware of the limitations of equilibrium models. We sketch some alternative
approaches and discuss why they should play an important role in future
research in economics
Leverage Causes Fat Tails and Clustered Volatility
We build a simple model of leveraged asset purchases with margin calls. Investment funds use what is perhaps the most basic financial strategy, called "value investing", i.e. systematically attempting to buy underpriced assets. When funds do not borrow, the price fluctuations of the asset are normally distributed and uncorrelated across time. All this changes when the funds are allowed to leverage, i.e. borrow from a bank, to purchase more assets than their wealth would otherwise permit. During good times competition drives investors to funds that use more leverage, because they have higher profits. As leverage increases price fluctuations become heavy tailed and display clustered volatility, similar to what is observed in real markets. Previous explanations of fat tails and clustered volatility depended on "irrational behavior", such as trend following. Here instead this comes from the fact that leverage limits cause funds to sell into a falling market: A prudent bank makes itself locally safer by putting a limit to leverage, so when a fund exceeds its leverage limit, it must partially repay its loan by selling the asset. Unfortunately this sometimes happens to all the funds simultaneously when the price is already falling. The resulting nonlinear feedback amplifies large downward price movements. At the extreme this causes crashes, but the effect is seen at every time scale, producing a power law of price disturbances. A standard (supposedly more sophisticated) risk control policy in which individual banks base leverage limits on volatility causes leverage to rise during periods of low volatility, and to contract more quickly when volatility gets high, making these extreme fluctuations even worse
Leverage Causes Fat Tails and Clustered Volatility
We build a simple model of leveraged asset purchases with margin calls. Investment funds use what is perhaps the most basic financial strategy, called "value investing," i.e. systematically attempting to buy underpriced assets. When funds do not borrow, the price fluctuations of the asset are normally distributed and uncorrelated across time. All this changes when the funds are allowed to leverage, i.e. borrow from a bank, to purchase more assets than their wealth would otherwise permit. During good times competition drives investors to funds that use more leverage, because they have higher profits. As leverage increases price fluctuations become heavy tailed and display clustered volatility, similar to what is observed in real markets. Previous explanations of fat tails and clustered volatility depended on "irrational behavior," such as trend folÂlowing. Here instead this comes from the fact that leverage limits cause funds to sell into a falling market: A prudent bank makes itself locally safer by putting a limit to leverage, so when a fund exceeds its leverage limit, it must partially repay its loan by selling the asset. Unfortunately this sometimes happens to all the funds simultaneously when the price is already falling. The resulting nonlinear feedback amplifies large downward price movements. At the extreme this causes crashes, but the effect is seen at every time scale, producing a power law of price disturbances. A standard (supposedly more sophisticated) risk control policy in which individual banks base leverage limits on volatility causes leverage to rise during periods of low volatility, and to contract more quickly when volatility gets high, making these extreme fluctuations even worse