High-Order Consumption Moments and Asset Pricing

Abstract

This paper develops an approximate equilibrium factor model for asset returns. In this model, the pricing factors are the cross-moments of return with the cross-sectional moments of individual consumption and the signs of the risk factor coefficients are driven by preference assumptions. Using household-level quarterly consumption data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey, we find that this model explains the observed equity premium with an economically realistic value of risk aversion when the stochastic discount factor is expressed in terms of the cross-sectional skewness and kurtosis, in addition to the mean and variance, of individual consumption.asset pricing, equity premium, Euler equation, heterogeneous consumers, incomplete consumption insurance.