Three essays in financial economics

Abstract

This thesis consists of three essays in financial economics, more precisely in the field of asset pricing and optimal portfolio choice. The first essay studies the asset pricing implications of heterogeneity in preferences coupled with long run risk in a dynamic general equilibrium pure exchange economy. It is concerned with the understanding of how risk sharing among different types of agents affects the assets returns moments in equilibrium and moreover, how these agents reacts dynamically to the long run risk that they perceive. The second and third essay approach the question of optimal portfolio with stochastic opportunity sets. The second essay proposes an approximation methodology for deriving approximate closed form solutions of dynamic optimal portfolio allocation problems. The third essay examines the optimal consumption, portfolio rule and life insurance purchase problem of a wage earner having uncertain lifetime when the market price of risk follows a mean-reverting stochastic process.