Uncertainty, Expectations, and Financial Instability: Reviving Allais's Lost Theory of Psychological Time

Eric Barthalon applies the neglected theory of psychological time and memory decay of Nobel Prize–winning economist Maurice Allais (1911–2010) to model investors' psychology in the present context of recurrent financial crises. Shaped by the behavior of the demand for money during episodes of hyperinflation, Allais's theory suggests economic agents perceive the flow of clocks' time and forget the past at a context-dependent pace: rapidly in the presence of persistent and accelerating inflation and slowly in the event of the opposite situation. Barthalon recasts Allais's work as a general theory of "expectations" under uncertainty, narrowing the gap between economic theory and investors' behavior. Barthalon extends Allais's theory to the field of financial instability, demonstrating its relevance to nominal interest rates in a variety of empirical scenarios and the positive nonlinear feedback that exists between asset price inflation and the demand for risky assets. Reviewing the works of the leading protagonists in the expectations controversy, Barthalon exposes the limitations of adaptive and rational expectations models and, by means of the perceived risk of loss, calls attention to the speculative bubbles that lacked the positive displacement discussed in Kindleberger's model of financial crises. He ultimately extrapolates Allaisian theory into a pragmatic approach to investor behavior and the natural instability of financial markets. He concludes with the policy implications for governments and regulators. Balanced and coherent, this book will be invaluable to researchers working in macreconomics, financial economics, behavioral finance, decision theory, and the history of economic thought.

Table of Contents:
List of Tables List of Figures Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Glossary of Mathematical Symbols in Order of Appearance Part 1. The Progressive Emergence of Expectations in Economic Theory 1. Expectations Before the Rational Expectations Revolution 2. Rational Expectations Are Endogenous to and Abide by "the" Model Part 2. Allais's Theory of "Expectations" Under Uncertainty 3. Macrofoundations of Monetary Dynamics 4. Microfoundations of Monetary Dynamics: The HRL Formulation of the Demand for Money 5. The Fundamental Equation of Monetary Dynamics 6. Joint Testing of the HRL Formulation of the Demand for Money and of the Fundamental Equation of Monetary Dynamics Part 3. Transposing the HRL Formulation to Financial Markets: Preliminary Steps 7. Allais's HRL Formulation: Illustration of Its Dynamic Properties by an Example of Hyperinflation (Zimbabwe 2000-2008) 8. The HRL Formulation and Nominal Interest Rates Part 4. The HRL Formulation and Financial Instability 9. Perceived Returns and the Modeling of Financial Behavior 10. Downside Potential Under Risk: The Allais Paradox and Its Conflicting Interpretations 11. Downside Potential Under Uncertainty: The Perceived Risk of Loss 12. Conclusion Appendix A: How to Compute Zn and zn Appendix B: Nominal Interest Rates and the Perceived Rate of Nominal Growth Appendix C: Proofs Appendix D: Comparison Between the Kalman Filter and Allais's HRL Algorithm Appendix E: A Note on the Theory of Intertemporal Choice Appendix F: Allais's Cardinal Utility Function Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Eric Barthalon is the global head of capital markets and tactical asset allocation at Allianz Investment Management in Munich, Germany. Throughout more than three decades of exposure to capital markets in global financial institutions (at Paribas and Allianz), in which he has focused constantly on asset management, Barthalon has sought to blend operational and research responsibilities, action with theoretical reflection. He received a Masters in Management from ESCP-Europe.

Review :
The jury of the 2015 Maurice Allais prize in economic science has nominated a seasoned investment professional, Eric Barthalon, for his book, Uncertainty, Expectations, and Financial Instability. Maurice Allais has constantly sought to bring economic theory as close as possible to empirical observations; fostering communication between practitioners and theorists has therefore been one of his long standing priorities. In this respect, the work submitted by Eric Barthalon to the Maurice Allais foundation is a model, while at the same time it is of rare scientific quality in such a context. In the first part of his book, Eric Barthalon expounds Allais's monetary theory with a command and puts it in a perspective, which no other book offers. As indicated by the subtitle, he advocates reinstating Allais's lost theory of psychological time in core economic theory. Emphasized is the fact that investors' expectations are not as rational as neoclassical economic theory claims them to be and that investors' memory is context-dependent, long in stable environment, shorter and shorter during bubbles, a proposition which is at the heart of Maurice Allais's monetary theory. In the second part of his book, Eric Barthalon investigates the issue of financial instability by means of Allais's theory of psychological time. His unearthing of a hitherto unseen empirical relationship between long-term nominal interest rates and the rate of nominal growth subjectively perceived by market participants adds a new chapter to Allais's monetary theory. In the last chapters, Eric Barthalon starts building original and promising bridges with the modeling of financial behavior. He also touches upon some important policy issues, like fractional reserve banking, which - as Allais and other economists before him - he holds for a key source of financial instability. -- 2015 Maurice Allais Prize in Economic Science citation An intellectual stretch for most charterholders, but the few who take the time to work through its complexities will be rewarded by seeing something that is considered old and tired as actually fresh and insightful. Financial Analysts Journal