Ronald J. Balvers

Mean Reversion across National Stock Markets and Parametric Contrarian Investment Strategies

For U.S. stock prices, evidence of mean reversion over long horizons is mixed, possibly due to lack of a reliable long time series. Using additional cross-sectional power gained from national stock index data of 18 countries during the period 1969 to 1996, we find strong evidence of mean reversion in relative stock index prices. Our findings imply a significantly positive speed of reversion with a half-life of three to three and one-half years. This result is robust to alternative specifications and data. Parametric contrarian investment strategies that fully exploit mean reversion across national indexes outperform buy-and-hold and standard contrarian strategies. Copyright The American Finance Association 2000.

Inflation Variability and Gradualist Monetary Policy

This paper considers the optimal approach to reducing inflation when the cost of inflation is its conditional variability. Inflation is stochastically related to money growth, with unobservable time-varying autonomous and induced components. A sharp reduction in money growth provides information about the responsiveness of inflation to money, but also induces variability as the economy heads into unknown territory. Gradual policy is always optimal and the model explains why moderate-inflation countries adopt a much more gradual money growth reduction than high-inflation countries. Additionally, the analysis sheds light on the more general problem of learning with two unobservable parameters.

Location in the Hotelling duopoly model with demand uncertainty

Abstract Demand uncertainty is introduced into a Hotelling environment with fixed prices by allowing random shocks to the desirability of the firms product. Given these random shocks, the choice of location affects the average level of demand as well as the riskness of demand: reducing the distance to the other firm raises expected demand and payoff but also lowers the degree of differentiation between the firms, thus raising demand uncertainty. Risk averse firms will locate away from the center and, depending on degree of risk aversion, markup, and size of the market, may locate on either side of the quartile points.

Money and the C-CAPM

We consider asset pricing in a monetary economy where liquid assets are held to lower transaction costs. The ensuing model extends the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) and the consumption CAPM by deriving real money growth as an additional factor determining returns. Empirically, the two model versions compare favorably to other theoretical asset pricing models along several dimensions, supporting the traditional intertemporal asset pricing perspective. A value premium arises because value firms are sensitive to liquidity shocks but growth firms are not. Although no alternative factor drives out the money growth factor, the conditioning CAY factors of Lettau and Ludvigson (2001b) add explanatory power.

Government expenditure and equilibrium real exchange rates

Abstract Government expenditures (financed by lump-sum taxes) influence real exchange rates potentially via a resource-withdrawal channel and a consumption-tilting channel. Recent theoretical and empirical studies have considered only the effects of government spending through the resource-withdrawal channel. We solve for the theoretical relationships among the real exchange rate, relative private consumption, relative government consumption, and tradables and nontradables production in a two-country general equilibrium model and then estimate the model’s structural equations. The results suggest that government expenditures influence real exchange rates approximately equally via the resource-withdrawal and consumption-tilting channels and that government and private consumption are complements in utility.

Periodic learning about a hidden state variable

Abstract In active learning models the value function is necessarily convex in the priors. Hence, in combination with a concave objective, the decision problem need not become concave so that nonregularity problems are inherent. This paper considers an objective that unambiguously implies a quasi-convex decision problem and highlights the effect of the inherent nonregularities on active learning. A trigger policy for learning is shown to be optimal: the minimum amount of learning is optimal until uncertainty surpasses a critical value. At this trigger point the maximum amount of learning is chosen, uncertainty falls temporarily, and the cycle then repeats itself.

EVALUATION OF LINEAR ASSET PRICING MODELS BY IMPLIED PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE

We adapt the metric of Kandel and Stambaugh (1995) to evaluate linear asset pricing models. The “KS-ratio” criterion rates a model’s usefulness based on the mean portfolio return a mean-variance decision maker obtains for any variance choice by using the model for optimal portfolio decisions. It is equivalent to a cross-sectional GLS R-square criterion and to a measure of minimum distance between the asset and factor frontiers. We assess the KS-ratio compared to the HJ-distance and ad hoc goodness-of-fit evaluation criteria with simulated returns. We then apply the various criteria to evaluate nine prominent asset pricing models with actual data.

Variability and the Duration of Search

In a sequential search model without learning, a proportionate mean-preserving spread of the offer distribution has two opposing effects on the expected duration of search: it raises the likelihood that any particular reservation value is exceeded, but also raises the reservation value itself. The net effect depends upon whether the sum of implicit and explicit search costs is positive, zero, or negative. Copyright 1990 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

Social Screens and Systematic Investor Boycott Risk

We model the pricing implications of screens adopted by socially responsible investors. The model reproduces the empirically observed abnormal return to sin stock and implies a premium for systematic investor boycott risk that affects targeted as well as nontargeted firms. The investor boycott premium is not displaced by litigation risk, measures of neglect effect, illiquidity, industry momentum, or concentration. The investor boycott risk factor is useful in explaining mean returns across industries, and its premium varies with the relative wealth of socially responsible investors and the business cycle.

A Keynesian general equilibrium model with competitive firms and rational expectations

A Keynesian general equilibrium model is developed from neoclassical principles. The model is based on competitive firm behavior, and optimizing agents that form expectations rationally. Firms determine their product price to maximize expected profits. Non-neutrality results follow from micro foundations that view firms as committing to a price and output level before actual demand is observed. It follows that optimal output levels are in part determined by demand conditions. In the general equilibrium framework, increases in government spending lead to welfare-improving increases in aggregate output.