Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2020
Within the seminal asset-pricing model by Brock and Hommes (Journal of Economic Dynamics Control 22, 1235–1274, 1998), heterogeneous boundedly rational agents choose between a fixed number of expectation rules to forecast asset prices. However, agents’ heterogeneity is limited in the sense that they typically switch between a representative technical and a representative fundamental expectation rule. Here, we generalize their framework by considering that all agents follow their own time-varying technical and fundamental expectation rules. Estimating our model using the method of simulated moments reveals that it is able to explain the statistical properties of the daily and monthly behavior of the S&P500 quite well. Moreover, our analysis reveals that heterogeneity is not only a realistic model property but clearly helps to explain the intricate dynamics of financial markets.
Presented at the 25th International Conference on Computing in Economics and Finance (CEF), June 28–June 30, 2019, Ottawa, Canada, and at the 23rd Annual Workshop on Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents (WEHIA), June 28–July 2, 2018, Tokyo, Japan. We thank Frank Westerhoff, Christian Proaño, Roberto Dieci, and Remco Zwinkels for their valuable feedback. The paper also benefited from constructive comments of two anonymous referees and an associate editor.