In economics, a puzzle is a situation where the implication of theory is inconsistent with observed economic data.
An example is the equity premium puzzle, which relates to the fact that over the last two hundred years, the risk premium of stocks over bonds has been around 5.5%, much larger than expected from theory. The equity premium puzzle was first documented by Mehra and Prescot (1985).
Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by classical economic theory.
Prospect theory is a theory of behavioral economics, judgment and decision making that was developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. The theory was cited in the decision to award Kahneman the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Loss aversion is a psychological and economic concept, which refers to how outcomes are interpreted as gains and losses where losses are subject to more sensitivity in people's responses compared to equivalent gains acquired. Kahneman and Tversky (1992) suggested that losses can be twice as powerful psychologically as gains.
The equity premium puzzle refers to the inability of an important class of economic models to explain the average equity risk premium (ERP) provided by a diversified portfolio of equities over that of government bonds, which has been observed for more than 100 years. There is a significant disparity between returns produced by stocks compared to returns produced by government treasury bills. The equity premium puzzle addresses the difficulty in understanding and explaining this disparity. This disparity is calculated using the equity risk premium:
A market anomaly in a financial market is predictability that seems to be inconsistent with theories of asset prices. Standard theories include the capital asset pricing model and the Fama-French Three Factor Model, but a lack of agreement among academics about the proper theory leads many to refer to anomalies without a reference to a benchmark theory. Indeed, many academics simply refer to anomalies as "return predictors", avoiding the problem of defining a benchmark theory.
In economics, incomplete markets are markets in which there does not exist an Arrow–Debreu security for every possible state of nature. In contrast with complete markets, this shortage of securities will likely restrict individuals from transferring the desired level of wealth among states.
Cumulative prospect theory (CPT) is a model for descriptive decisions under risk and uncertainty which was introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1992. It is a further development and variant of prospect theory. The difference between this version and the original version of prospect theory is that weighting is applied to the cumulative probability distribution function, as in rank-dependent expected utility theory but not applied to the probabilities of individual outcomes. In 2002, Daniel Kahneman received the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his contributions to behavioral economics, in particular the development of Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT).
Rajnish Mehra is an Indian American financial economist. He currently holds the E.N. Basha Arizona Heritage Endowed Chair at the Arizona State University and is a Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Feldstein–Horioka puzzle is a widely discussed problem in macroeconomics and international finance, which was first documented by Martin Feldstein and Charles Horioka in a 1980 paper. Economic theory assumes that if investors can easily invest anywhere in the world, acting rationally they would invest in countries offering the highest return per unit of investment. This would drive up the price of the investment until the return across different countries is similar.
In economics, the Backus–Kehoe–Kydland consumption correlation puzzle, also known as the BKK puzzle, is the observation that consumption is much less correlated across countries than output.
In finance and investing, the Home bias puzzle is the term given to describe the fact that individuals and institutions in most countries hold only modest amounts of foreign equity, and tend to strongly favor company stock from their home nation. This finding is regarded as puzzling, since ample evidence shows equity portfolios obtain substantial benefits from diversification into global stocks. Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff identified this as one of the six major puzzles in international macroeconomics.
The home bias in trade puzzle is a widely discussed problem in macroeconomics and international finance, first documented by John T. McCallum in an article from 1995.
The real exchange-rate puzzles is a common term for two much-discussed anomalies of real exchange rates: that real exchange rates are more volatile and show more persistence than what most models can account for. These two anomalies are sometimes referred to as the purchasing power parity puzzles.
In economics, a rare disaster is a collapse that is infrequent and large in magnitude, having a negative effect on an economy. Rare disasters are important because they provide an explanation of the equity premium puzzle, the behavior of interest rates, and other economic phenomena.
The home bias puzzle could refer to two distinct economic phenomena:
Jeremy James Siegel is an American economist who is the Russell E. Palmer Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Siegel comments extensively on the economy and financial markets. He appears regularly on networks including CNN, CNBC and NPR, and writes regular columns for Kiplinger's Personal Finance and Yahoo! Finance. Siegel's paradox is named after him.
This glossary of economics is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in economics, its sub-disciplines, and related fields.
Oleg Itskhoki is a Russian-American economist specialized on macroeconomics and international economics and a professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He won the John Bates Clark Medal for his "fundamental contributions to both international finance and international trade" in 2022.
Ravi Bansal is an economist and an academic. He is J.B. Fuqua Professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is most known for his research work in the fields of financial economics and macroeconomics.