The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Retail Financial Innovation and Stock Market Dynamics: The Case of Target Date Funds
Published: 06/19/2023 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13258
JONATHAN A. PARKER, ANTOINETTE SCHOAR, YANG SUN
Target date funds (TDFs) are designed to provide unsophisticated or inattentive investors with age‐appropriate exposures to different asset classes like stocks and bonds. The rise of TDFs has moved a significant share of retirement investors into macrocontrarian strategies that sell stocks after relatively good stock market performance. This rebalancing drives contrarian flows across equity mutual funds held by TDFs, stabilizing their funding, and reduces stock returns for stocks disproportionately held by these funds when stock market returns are relatively high. Continued growth in TDFs and similar investment products may dampen stock market volatility and increase the transmission of shocks across asset classes.
Luxury Goods and the Equity Premium
Published: 11/27/2005 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2004.00721.x
YACINE AÏT‐SAHALIA, JONATHAN A. PARKER, MOTOHIRO YOGO
This paper evaluates the equity premium using novel data on the consumption of luxury goods. Specifying utility as a nonhomothetic function of both luxury and basic consumption goods, we derive pricing equations and evaluate the risk of holding equity. Household survey and national accounts data mostly reflect basic consumption, and therefore overstate the risk aversion necessary to match the observed equity premium. The risk aversion implied by the consumption of luxury goods is more than an order of magnitude less than that implied by national accounts data. For the very rich, the equity premium is much less of a puzzle.
Belief Disagreement and Portfolio Choice
Published: 09/18/2022 | DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13179
MAARTEN MEEUWIS, JONATHAN A. PARKER, ANTOINETTE SCHOAR, DUNCAN SIMESTER
Using proprietary financial data on millions of households, we show that likely‐Republicans increased the equity share and market beta of their portfolios following the 2016 presidential election, while likely‐Democrats rebalanced into safe assets. We provide evidence that this behavior was driven by investors interpreting public information based on different models of the world. We use detailed controls to rule out the main nonbelief‐based channels such as income hedging needs, preferences, and local economic exposures. These findings are driven by a small share of investors making big changes, and are stronger among investors who trade more ex ante.