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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Heterogeneous Beliefs, Speculation, and the Equity Premium
Published: 01/10/2008 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2008.01310.x
ALEXANDER DAVID
Agents with heterogeneous beliefs about fundamental growth do not share risks perfectly but instead speculate with each other on the relative accuracy of their models' predictions. They face the risk that market prices move more in line with the trading models of competing agents than with their own. Less risk‐averse agents speculate more aggressively and demand higher risk premiums. My calibrated model generates countercyclical consumption volatility, earnings forecast dispersion, and cross‐sectional consumption dispersion. With a risk aversion coefficient less than one, agents' speculation causes half the observed equity premium and lowers the riskless rate by about 1%.