Technological innovation and real investment booms and busts

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: DeMarzo, Peter; Kaniel, Ron; Kremer, Ilan
• 署名单位: National Bureau of Economic Research; Duke University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2006.07.003
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 735-754
• 关键词: overinvestment; Technological innovation; relative wealth; Bubble

摘要

We investigate why new, high-risk technologies can attract excessive and often unprofitable investment. We develop an equilibrium model in which rational, risk-averse agents overinvest in a risky technology, possibly to the point that its expected return is negative. Overinvestment results from relative wealth concerns which arise endogenously from the imperfect tradability of future endowments. Competition over future consumption leads to an indirect utility for wealth with keeping up with the Joneses properties that can induce herding. Because overinvestment increases with the risk of the technology, our model can explain why new, risky technological innovations may promote investment bubbles. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.