Search results for "Stochastic discount factor"

Proportional Small Sample Bias in Pricing Kernel Estimations

2014

Numerous empirical studies find pricing kernels that are not-monotonically decreasing; the findings are at odds with the pricing kernel being marginal utility of a risk-averse, so-called representative agent. We study in detail the common procedure which estimates the pricing kernel as the ratio of two separate density estimations. In a first step, we analyze theoretically the functional dependence for the ratio of a density to its estimated density; this cautions the reader of potential computational issues coupled with statistical techniques. In a second step, we study this quantitatively; we show that small sample biases shape the estimated pricing kernel, and that estimated pricing kern…