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Beauty Contests and Fat Tails in Financial Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Makoto Nirei

    (Hitotsubashi University)

  • Tsutomu Watanabe

    (University of Tokyo)

Abstract
Using a simultaneous-move herding model of rational traders who infer other traders' private information on the value of an asset by observing their aggre- gate actions, this study seeks to explain the emergence of fat-tailed distributions of transaction volumes and asset returns in financial markets. Without mak- ing any parametric assumptions on private information, we analytically show that traders' aggregate actions follow a power law distribution. We also provide simulation results to show that our model successfully reproduces the empirical distributions of asset returns. We argue that our model is similar to Keynes's beauty contest in the sense that traders, who are assumed to be homogeneous, have an incentive to mimic the average trader, leading to a situation similar to the indeterminacy of equilibrium. In this situation, a trader's buying action causes a stochastic chain-reaction, resulting in power laws for financial fluctuations.

Suggested Citation

  • Makoto Nirei & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2014. "Beauty Contests and Fat Tails in Financial Markets," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 024, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:upd:utppwp:024
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Makoto Nirei & John Stachurski & Tsutomu Watanabe, 2018. "Trade Clustering and Power Laws in Financial Markets (Published in Theoretical Economics, 15:1365?1398, 2020)," CARF F-Series CARF-F-450, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    2. Koichiro Kamada & Ko Miura, 2014. "Confidence Erosion and Herding Behavior in Bond Markets: An Essay on Central Bank Communication Strategy," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 14-E-6, Bank of Japan.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Herd behavior; transaction volume; stock return; fat tail; power law;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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