TY  - JOUR
AU  - Brunnermeier,Markus K.
AU  - Parker,Jonathan A.
TI  - Optimal Expectations
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10707
PY  - 2004
Y2  - August 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10707
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10707.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Markus K. Brunnermeier
Princeton University
Department of Economics
Bendheim Center for Finance
Princeton, NJ 08540
Tel: 609/258-4050
Fax: 609/258-0771
E-Mail: markus@princeton.edu

Jonathan Parker
Finance Department
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
2001 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL  60208-2001
Tel: 847/491-4113
Fax: 847/491-5719
E-Mail: Jonathan-Parker@Kellogg.Northwestern.edu
AB  - This paper introduces a tractable, structural model of subjective beliefs. Forward-looking agents care about expected future utility flows, and hence have higher current felicity if they believe that better outcomes are more likely. On the other hand, biased expectations lead to poorer decisions and worse realized outcomes on average. Optimal expectations balance these forces by maximizing average felicity. A small bias in beliefs typically leads to first-order gains due to increased anticipatory utility and only to second-order costs due to distorted behavior. We show that in a portfolio choice problem, agents overestimate the return on their investment and exhibit a preference for skewness. In general equilibrium, agents' prior beliefs are endogenously heterogeneous. Finally, in a consumption-saving problem with stochastic income, agents are both overconfident and overoptimistic.
ER  -