Julien Hugonnier

Optimal investment with random endowments in incomplete markets

In this paper, we study the problem of expected utility maximization of an agent who, in addition to an initial capital, receives random endowments at maturity. Contrary to previous studies, we treat as the variables of the optimization problem not only the initial capital but also the number of units of the random endowments. We show that this approach leads to a dual problem, whose solution is always attained in the space of random variables. In particular, this technique does not require the use of finitely additive measures and the related assumption that the endowments are bounded.

Health and (Other) Asset Holdings

Despite clear evidence of correlations between financial and medical statuses and decisions, most models treat financial and health-related choices separately. This paper bridges this gap by proposing a tractable dynamic framework for the joint determination of optimal consumption, portfolio holdings, health investment and health insurance. We solve for the optimal rules in closed form and capitalize on this tractability to gain a better understanding of the conditions under which separation between financial and health-related decisions is sensible, and of the pathways through which wealth and health determine allocations, welfare and other variables of interest such as expected longevity or the value of health. Furthermore we show that the model is consistent with the observed patterns of individual allocations and provide realistic estimates of the parameters that confirm the relevance of all the main characteristics of the model.

Rational asset pricing bubbles and portfolio constraints

This article shows that portfolio constraints can give rise to rational asset pricing bubbles in equilibrium even if there are unconstrained agents in the economy who can benefit from the induced limited arbitrage opportunities. Furthermore, it is shown that bubbles can lead to both multiplicity and real indeterminacy of equilibria. The general results are illustrated by two explicitly solved examples where seemingly innocuous portfolio constraints make bubbles a necessary condition for the existence of an equilibrium.

Endogenous Completeness of Diffusion Driven Equilibrium Markets

We study the existence of dynamic equilibria with endogenously complete markets in continuous-time, heterogenous agents economies driven by diffusion processes. Our main results show that under appropriate conditions on the transition density of the state variables, market completeness can be deduced from the primitives of the economy. In particular, we prove that a sufficient condition for market completeness is that the volatility of dividends be invertible and provide higher order conditions that apply when this condition fails as is the case in the presence of fixed income securities. In contrast to previous research, our formulation does not require that securities pay terminal dividends, and thus allows for both finite and infinite horizon economies.

Heterogeneous preferences and equilibrium trading volume

The classic Lucas asset pricing model with complete markets stresses aggregate risk and, hence, fails to investigate the impact of agents heterogeneity on the dynamics of the equilibrium quantities and measures of trading volume. In this paper, we investigate under what conditions non-informational heterogeneity, i.e., differences in preferences and endowments, leads to non trivial trading volume in equilibrium. Our main result comes in form of a non-informational no trade theorem which provides necessary and sufficient conditions for zero trading volume in a dynamically efficient, continuous time Lucas market model with multiple goods and securities.

Incomplete Information, Idiosyncratic Volatility and Stock Returns

We develop a q-theoretic model of investment under incomplete information that explains the link between idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. When calibrated to match properties of the US business cycles as well as various firms and industry characteristics, the model generates a negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. We show that conditional on earning surprises, the link is positive after good news and negative after bad news. This result provides new insights on the nature of stock return predictability.

Heterogeneity in Decentralized Asset Markets

We study a search and bargaining model of an asset market, where investors’ heterogeneous valuations for the asset are drawn from an arbitrary distribution. Our solution technique renders the analysis fully tractable and allows us to provide a full characterization of the equilibrium, in closed-form, both in and out of steady-state. We use this characterization for two purposes. First, we establish that the model can naturally account for a number of stylized facts that have been documented in empirical studies of over-the-counter asset markets. In particular, we show that heterogeneity among market participants implies that assets are reallocated through “intermediation chains,�? ultimately producing a core-periphery trading network and non-trivial distributions of prices and trading times. Second, we show that the model generates a number of novel results that underscore the importance of heterogeneity in decentralized markets. We highlight two: First, heterogeneity magnifies the price impact of search frictions; and second, search frictions have larger effects on price levels than on price dispersion. Hence, quantifying the price discount or premium created by search frictions based on observed price dispersion can be misleading.

Mutual fund competition in the presence of dynamic flows

This paper analyzes competition between mutual funds in a multiple funds version of the model of Hugonnier and Kaniel (2010). We characterize the set of equilibria for this portfolio management game and show that there exists a unique Pareto optimal equilibrium. The main result of this paper shows that the funds cannot differentiate themselves through portfolio choice in the sense that they should offer the same risk/return tradeoff in equilibrium. This result brings theoretical support to the findings of recent empirical studies on the importance of media coverage and marketing in the mutual funds industry.

Capital Supply Uncertainty, Cash Holdings, and Investment

We develop a dynamic model of investment, financing, and cash management decisions in which investment is lumpy and firms face capital supply uncertainty. We characterize optimal policies explicitly, demonstrate that smooth-pasting conditions may not guarantee optimality, and show that firms may not follow standard Miller and Orr (1966) barrier policies. In the model, firms with high investment costs differ in their behaviors from firms with low investment costs, financing policy does not follow a strict pecking order, and the optimal payout policy may feature several regions with both incremental and lumpy dividend payments.

Valuing Life as an Asset, as a Statistic and at Gunpoint

The Human Capital (HK) and Statistical Life Values (VSL) differ sharply in their empirical pricing of a human life and lack a common theoretical background to justify these differences. We first contribute to the theory and measurement of life value by providing a unified framework to formally define and relate the Hicksian willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid changes in death risks, the HK and the VSL. Second, we use this setting to introduce an alternative life value calculated at Gunpoint (GPV), i.e. the WTP to avoid certain, instantaneous death. Third, we associate a flexible human capital model to the common framework to characterize the WTP and the three life valuations in closed-form. Fourth, our structural estimates of these solutions yield mean life values of 8.35 M