Only Time Will Tell Risk Optimization from a Dynamics Perspective

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Only Time Will Tell Risk Optimization from a Dynamics Perspective Only time will tell Only time will Risk optimization from a dynamics perspective tell O. Peters Ole Peters Ole Peters Positioning Innocuous game Fellow External Professor Leverage optimization London Mathematical Laboratory Santa Fe Institute How deep the rabbit hole goes 12 May 2015 Global Quantitative Investment Strategies Conference Nomura, NYC Only time will tell O. Peters Ole Peters Name dropping: Positioning Many thanks to Alex Adamou, Bill Klein, Reuben Hersh, Innocuous game Murray Gell-Mann, Ken Arrow. Leverage optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes Only time will tell 1 Positioning O. Peters Ole Peters Positioning 2 Innocuous game Innocuous game Leverage optimization 3 Leverage optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes 4 How deep the rabbit hole goes • 17th century: mainstream economics went down a dead-end. • 19th { 21st centuries: relevant mathematics developed. Program Re-derive formal economics from modern starting point. Only time will tell My perspective O. Peters Ole Peters Positioning Innocuous game Leverage optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes • 19th { 21st centuries: relevant mathematics developed. Program Re-derive formal economics from modern starting point. Only time will tell My perspective O. Peters Ole Peters • 17th century: mainstream economics went down a Positioning dead-end. Innocuous game Leverage optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes Program Re-derive formal economics from modern starting point. Only time will tell My perspective O. Peters Ole Peters • 17th century: mainstream economics went down a Positioning dead-end. Innocuous game • 19th { 21st centuries: relevant mathematics developed. Leverage optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes Only time will tell My perspective O. Peters Ole Peters • 17th century: mainstream economics went down a Positioning dead-end. Innocuous game • 19th { 21st centuries: relevant mathematics developed. Leverage optimization How deep the Program rabbit hole goes Re-derive formal economics from modern starting point. Only time will tell O. Peters Thesis: Ole Peters Problem with randomness, i.e. risk. Positioning th Innocuous 17 -century key concept ! parallel worlds. game st Leverage 21 -century mathematics ! time. optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes Innocuous game Only time will tell O. Peters Ole Peters Positioning Innocuous game Leverage optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes Heads: win 50%. Tails: lose 40%. Innocuous game Toss coin once a minute Only time will tell O. Peters Ole Peters 120 Positioning 100 Innocuous game 80 Leverage optimization 60 How deep the rabbit hole goes 40 money in $ 20 0 1 2 3 4 5 Time in minutes One sequence Only time will tell O. Peters 10000 Ole Peters 1000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 Leverage optimization money in $ 10 How deep the rabbit hole goes 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time in minutes 10 sequences Only time will tell O. Peters 10000 Ole Peters 1000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 Leverage optimization money in $ 10 How deep the rabbit hole goes 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time in minutes 20 sequences Only time will tell O. Peters 10000 Ole Peters 1000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 Leverage optimization money in $ 10 How deep the rabbit hole goes 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time in minutes Average of 20 sequences Only time will tell O. Peters 10000 Ole Peters 1000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 Leverage optimization money in $ 10 How deep the rabbit hole goes 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time in minutes Average of 1000 sequences Only time will tell O. Peters 10000 Ole Peters 1000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 Leverage optimization money in $ 10 How deep the rabbit hole goes 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time in minutes Average of 1,000,000 sequences Only time will tell O. Peters 10000 Ole Peters 1000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 Leverage optimization money in $ 10 How deep the rabbit hole goes 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time in minutes Only time will tell O. Peters Ole Peters Positioning Good game? Innocuous game Leverage optimization How deep the rabbit hole goes Play for one hour... Only time will tell 10000 O. Peters Ole Peters 1000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 Leverage optimization money in $ 10 How deep the rabbit hole goes 1 10 20 30 40 50 60 Time in minutes ..continue one day (note scales)... Only time will tell O. Peters 1040 10000 Ole Peters 1000 "" 1020 " 100 Positioning " money in $ 10 " ((( 1 Innocuous "(( 10 20 30 40 50 60 game 100 Time in minutes Leverage optimization 10−20 money in $ How deep the rabbit hole −40 goes 10 6 12 18 24 Time in hours ..continue one week (note scales)... Only time will tell O. Peters 10300 Ole Peters " 1040 " 1020 150 " 100 Positioning 10 -20 " money in $ 10 " 10-40 Innocuous " (( 0 6 12 18 24 game 100 (( Time in hours Leverage optimization 10−150 money in $ How deep the rabbit hole −300 goes 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Time in days ..continue one year (note scales)... Only time will tell O. Peters 10;000 Ole Peters 10 " 10300 " 10150 " 100 Positioning 10-150 " money in $ " (((( 10-300 Innocuous "(( 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 game 100 Time in days Leverage optimization money in $ How deep the −10;000 rabbit hole 10 goes 3 6 9 12 Time in months Only time will tell O. Peters Ensemble 10000 perspective Time perspective Ole Peters 1000 1010;000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 100 Leverage optimization money in $ money in $ 10 −10;000 How deep the 10 rabbit hole goes 1 3 6 9 12 10 20 30 40 50Time 60 in months Time in minutes Only time will Non-ergodic tell O. Peters Ensemble 10000 perspective 6= Time perspective Ole Peters 1000 1010;000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 100 Leverage optimization money in $ money in $ 10 −10;000 How deep the 10 rabbit hole goes 1 3 6 9 12 10 20 30 40 50Time 60 in months Time in minutes Only time will Non-ergodic tell O. Peters Ensemble 10000 perspective 6= Time perspective Ole Peters 1000 1010;000 Positioning Innocuous game 100 100 Leverage optimization money in $ money in $ 10 −10;000 How deep the 10 rabbit hole goes 1 3 6 9 12 10 20 30 40 50Time 60 in months Non-commutingTime in minutes limits limT !1 limN!1 gest 6= limN!1 limT !1 gest No magic. Only time will tell O. Peters Ensemble perspective Ole Peters Positioning Innocuous $150 game heads universe Leverage optimization $100 average (probabilities = weights) How deep the rabbit hole $50 goes tails universe 0 1 2 Result: $110.25 No magic. Only time will tell O. Peters Ensemble perspective Time perspective Ole Peters Positioning Innocuous $150 $150 game heads universe Leverage one trajectory $100 average $100 optimization (probabilities = frequencies) (probabilities = weights) How deep the rabbit hole $50 $50 goes tails universe 0 1 2 0 1 2 Result: $110.25 Result: $90 Only time will tell O. Peters Message: Ole Peters Expectation value meaningful only if Positioning • observable is ergodic Innocuous game • a physical ensemble exists Leverage optimization How deep the Otherwise meaningless. rabbit hole goes Leverage optimization Only time will tell Problem: find proportion of wealth to invest in some venture. O. Peters Neoclassical Time Ole Peters economics perspective Positioning Model Random variable ∆x Stochastic process Innocuous game to represent changes x(t) to represent Leverage in wealth. wealth over time. optimization Technique 1656 {1738: compute Find ergodic observ- How deep the rabbit hole expectation value able f (x). Optimize goes h∆xi. time-average perfor- 1738 onwards: find mance by computing utility function u(x), expectation value of optimize expectation ergodic observable. value h∆u(x)i. Example: Only time will geometric Brownian motion (GBM) with leverage l. tell O. Peters • Proportion l invested in GBM Ole Peters • Proportion 1 − l invested in risk-free asset Positioning • constant rebalancing, self-financed portfolio. Innocuous game Wealth follows: dx = x((µr + lµe )dt + lσdW ) Leverage optimization l 2σ2 Solution: x(t) = x0 exp µr + lµe − 2 t + lσW (t) How deep the rabbit hole goes ! Find optimal leverage using a) Utility theory. b) Time perspective. a) Utility theory with power-law utility, u(x) = xα: • Fix horizon ∆t, consider random variable x(∆t). Only time will α tell • Convert x(∆t) to utility u(x(∆t)) = x(∆t) , α l2σ2 u(x(∆t)) = x exp α µr + lµe − ∆t + αlσW (∆t) O. Peters 0 2 Ole Peters • Find expectation value of u(x(∆t)), Positioning α l2σ2 αl2σ2 hu(x(∆t))i = x0 exp α∆t µr + lµe − 2 + 2 Innocuous game Implies expected change in utility h∆ui = hu(x(∆t))i − u(x0). Leverage optimization • Set derivative to zero, How deep the dh∆ui = 0 rabbit hole dl goes α 2 2 l2σ2 αl2σ2 = x0 α∆t µe − lσ + αlσ exp α∆t µr + lµe − 2 + 2 : • Solve for l u µe lopt = (1−α)σ2 . b) Time perspective Only time will • Given x(t), find ergodic observable, i.e. f (x) such that tell Ensemble average Time average z }| { O. Peters z }| { N 1 Z T 1 X lim f (x(t))dt = f (xi (t)) = hf (x(t))i : Ole Peters T !1 T 0 N i Positioning Solution is a growth rate, determined by dynamics, Innocuous f (x) = 1 log(x(t + ∆t)=x(t)): game ∆t Leverage • Find time average (or expectation value) optimization l2σ2 How deep the f = µr + lµe − 2 : rabbit hole goes • Set derivative to zero, solve for l t µe lopt = σ2 : Comments: • u µe lopt = (1−α)σ2 depends on utility function (α). Only time will tell t µe lopt = σ2 set by dynamics.
Recommended publications
  • Is Real Options Analysis Fit for Purpose in Supporting Climate Adaptation Planning and Decision-Making?
    Delft University of Technology Is real options analysis fit for purpose in supporting climate adaptation planning and decision-making? Kwakkel, Jan H. DOI 10.1002/wcc.638 Publication date 2020 Document Version Final published version Published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change Citation (APA) Kwakkel, J. H. (2020). Is real options analysis fit for purpose in supporting climate adaptation planning and decision-making? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 11(3), [e638]. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.638 Important note To cite this publication, please use the final published version (if applicable). Please check the document version above. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons. Takedown policy Please contact us and provide details if you believe this document breaches copyrights. We will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. This work is downloaded from Delft University of Technology. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to a maximum of 10. Received: 15 October 2019 Revised: 9 December 2019 Accepted: 14 January 2020 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.638 OPINION Is real options analysis fit for purpose in supporting climate adaptation planning and decision-making? Jan H. Kwakkel Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Abstract Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Even though real options analysis (ROA) is often thought as the best tool avail- able for evaluating flexible strategies, there are profound problems with the Correspondence Jan H.
    [Show full text]
  • ALTERNATIVE BETA MATTERS Quarterly Newsletter - Q3 2019
    Alt Beta Newsletter 1 August 2019 ALTERNATIVE BETA MATTERS Quarterly Newsletter - Q3 2019 Introduction Welcome to CFM’s Alternative Beta Matters Quarterly Newsletter. Within this report we recap major developments in the Alternative Industry, together with a brief overview of Equity, Fixed Income/Credit, FX and Commodity markets as well as Trading Regulations and Data Science and Machine Learning news. All discussion is agnostic to particular approaches or techniques, and where alternative benchmark strategy results are presented, the exact methodology used is given. It also features our ‘CFM Talks To’ segment, an interview series in which we discuss topical issues with thought leaders from academia, the finance industry, and beyond. We have included an extended academic abstract from a paper published during the quarter, and one whitepaper. Our hope is that these publications, which convey our views on topics related to Alternative Beta that have arisen in our many discussions with clients, can be used as a reference for our readers, and can stimulate conversations on these topical issues. Contact details Call us +33 1 49 49 59 49 Email us [email protected] www.cfm.fr CFM Alternative Beta Matters CONTENTS 3 Quarterly review 10 Extended abstract Portfolio selection with active strategies: how long only constraints shape convictions 10 Other news 11 CFM Talks To Emanuel Derman, Columbia University 15 Whitepaper On Business Cycles… and when Trend Following works www.cfm.fr 02 CFM Alternative Beta Matters Index3 (2.8% over the quarter) registered similar Quarterly review performance. The one year rolling average absolute correlation between Quantitative overview of all futures contracts, often taken as an indicator of CTAs’ ability to diversify, fell during Q2, and reached close to 16% key developments in Q2 at the end of June.
    [Show full text]
  • Heterodox Economics Newsletter Issue 248 — June 10, 2019 — Web1 — Pdf2 — Heterodox Economics Directory3
    Heterodox Economics Newsletter Issue 248 | June 10, 2019 | web1 | pdf2 | Heterodox Economics Directory3 Pinning down the nature of heterodox economics and suggesting appropriate definitions of this field of study is both, a general concern of the heterodox research community and a practical necessity for advancing a coherent research agenda. An interesting recent contribution to this discussion can be found here4 , which emphasizes, among other things, that "it is important to have a positive definition of heterodox economics to distinguish the field from other social sciences, as well as from the mainstream of the field.” This argument reminds me that it was exactly this concern that motivated me - many years ago, when I started editing this Newsletter - to change the definition given on our webpage from a 'negative' one, which focused on differences to mainstream approaches, to a 'positive' version, which puts emphasis on common conceptual building blocks across different heterodox traditions (see here5 & scroll down a little). In my view, such a positive definition does not only allow to carve out commonalities between different heterodox traditions as well as to provide a more reasoned account on the differences to mainstream economics, but also comes with greater conceptual clarity that makes heterodox economics a more attractive contributor to other sub-fields in social research, like development studies, economic sociology or political economy (as already emphasized here6 ). Having said all that, I wanted to urge you to inspect this week's
    [Show full text]
  • Engineering Token Economy with System Modeling
    Engineering Token Economy with System Modeling Zixuan Zhang Acknowledgment This thesis will not be possible without the advice and guidance from Dr Michael Zargham, founder of BlockScience and Penn PhD alumnus in Network Science and Dr Victor Preciado, Raj and Neera Singh Professor in Network and Data Sciences. Abstract Cryptocurrencies and blockchain networks have attracted tremendous attention from their volatile price movements and the promise of decentralization. However, most projects run on business narratives with no way to test and verify their assumptions and promises about the future. The complex nature of system dynamics within networked economies has rendered it difficult to reason about the growth and evolution of these networks. This paper drew concepts from differential games, classical control engineering, and stochastic dynamical system to come up with a framework and example to model, simulate, and engineer networked token economies. A model on a generalized token economy is proposed where miners provide service to a platform in exchange for a cryptocurrency and users consume service from the platform. Simulations of this model allow us to observe outcomes of complex dynamics and reason about the evolution of the system. Speculative price movements and engineered block rewards were then experimented to observe their impact on system dynamics and network-level goals. The model presented is necessarily limited so we conclude by exploring those limitations and outlining future research directions. Table of Content Introduction
    [Show full text]
  • Agricultural Production Economics Lecture Notes Pdf
    Agricultural Production Economics Lecture Notes Pdf andInfested discernible. and stung Tectonic Austen Judd hydrogenating sometimes her gaugings hunky voiceany mesophyte or abominates educates adown. purulently. Rodge bolshevises her twists jeopardously, strip-mined Most resources will almost universal lack of production economics lecture notes ppt and taking irrigation systems that of satisfaction derived from volcanic ash, you back thousands of land India too late assignments may sometimes leads to be sacrificed so far more intuitive: chemical fertilizers or depletion continues, but then too. Topics students to pay for print copies are believed to provide leadership. Bfit is agricultural production economics lecture notes pdf download. Marginal productivity eventually declines with or feed. Mediterranean agriculture involves the rearing of animals and opportunity of crops in more rugged, Mediterranean terrain. Now the farmer has to decide how much of land array to use clean each product. Timber harvesting with fluctuating prices. Amcat certification in this property means that more productive allocation is called as with their disposal. It involves numerous significant responsibilities, i produce other also increased production process section can be made by having global shortagesalso responsible. The assembly of a scattered and haphazard output of yet of various types and qualities is inevitably expensive. Are unlimited of fuel efficient allocation essential topics students need though help your. Given resources held fixed. The average cost is being replaced product, this role to households and agricultural production economics lecture notes pdf free. Agricultural research review press again to such as well as populations and techniques car washes are clung to agricultural production economics lecture notes pdf for abilene feedlot.
    [Show full text]
  • Choix D'innovation
    Choix d’innovation Diomides Mavroyiannis To cite this version: Diomides Mavroyiannis. Choix d’innovation. Economics and Finance. Université Paris sciences et lettres, 2019. English. NNT : 2019PSLED065. tel-03222300 HAL Id: tel-03222300 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-03222300 Submitted on 10 May 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Préparée à Université Paris-Dauphine Innovation and choice Soutenue par Composition du jury : Diomides Mavroyiannis Olivier Bos Le 12 Décembre 2019 Université Panthéon-Assas Rapporteur Sara Biancini Université de Cergy-Pontoise Rapporteur École doctorale no543 Frederic Loss École doctorale de Dauphine Université Paris-Dauphine Examinateur Claire Chambolle INRA President du jury Spécialité David Ettinger Université Paris-Dauphine Directeur de thèse Sciences économiques Contents 0.1 The origins on the debate about private property...............6 0.1.1 What is a property right?........................8 0.1.2 The language of property rights.....................8 0.2 The static economics of property rights..................... 14 0.2.1 Coasian paradigm............................. 17 0.3 The Dynamic creation of property rights.................... 20 0.3.1 Incomplete contracting.......................... 24 0.4 Intellectual Property............................... 28 0.4.1 Assumptions of intellectual property.................
    [Show full text]
  • Lecture Notes Or in Any Other Reasonable Lecture Notes
    Ergodicity Economics Ole Peters and Alexander Adamou 2018/06/30 at 12:11:59 1 Contents 1 Tossing a coin4 1.1 The game...............................5 1.1.1 Averaging over many trials.................6 1.1.2 Averaging over time.....................7 1.1.3 Expectation value......................9 1.1.4 Time average......................... 14 1.1.5 Ergodic observables..................... 19 1.2 Rates................................. 23 1.3 Brownian motion........................... 24 1.4 Geometric Brownian motion..................... 28 1.4.1 Itˆocalculus.......................... 31 2 Decision theory 33 2.1 Models and science fiction...................... 34 2.2 Gambles................................ 34 2.3 Repetition and wealth evolution................... 36 2.4 Growth rates............................. 39 2.5 The decision axiom.......................... 41 2.6 The expected-wealth and expected-utility paradigms....... 45 2.7 General dynamics........................... 48 2.7.1 Why discuss general dynamics?............... 48 2.7.2 Technical setup........................ 50 2.7.3 Dynamic from a utility function.............. 54 2.7.4 Utility function from a dynamic.............. 56 2.8 The St Petersburg paradox..................... 59 2.9 The insurance puzzle......................... 65 2.9.1 Solution in the time paradigm............... 69 2.9.2 The classical solution of the insurance puzzle....... 71 3 Populations 72 3.1 Every man for himself........................ 73 3.1.1 Log-normal distribution................... 73 3.1.2 Two growth rates....................... 74 3.1.3 Measuring inequality..................... 75 3.1.4 Wealth condensation..................... 76 3.1.5 Rescaled wealth........................ 77 3.1.6 u-normal distributions and Jensen’s inequality...... 78 3.1.7 power-law resemblance.................... 79 3.2 Finite populations.......................... 80 3.2.1 Sums of log-normals....................
    [Show full text]
  • Our Governance and Sustainability 05
    BAILLIE Sustainability and Governance Our Our Governance GIFFORD. and Sustainability ACTUAL INVESTORS. Edition First First Edition bailliegifford.com/actual-investors BAILLIE GIFFORD Investment managers Calton Square, 1 Greenside Row, Edinburgh EH1 3AN Telephone +44 (0)131 275 2000 Copyright © Baillie Gifford & Co 2019. Risk Factors The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and should not be considered as advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a particular investment. They reflect personal opinion and should not be taken as statements of fact nor should any reliance be placed on them when making investment decisions. All information is sourced from Baillie Gifford & Co and is current unless otherwise stated. The images used in this document are for illustrative purposes only. Special thanks to the locations in Edinburgh that we have used for the photography: Timberyard, The National Museum of Scotland, Eden Locke, The Royal Botanic Garden, Kanpai and The Glasshouse. Governance and Sustainability 37422 0419.indd Ref: 37422 ALL AR 0057 Contents 01 Contents Welcome About us Baillie Gifford’s own Governance 03 05 13 Learning from Investment Our People Academia Stewardship 19 25 31 Environmental Supporting our Literary Management Communities Sponsorship 45 53 61 02 Welcome “Our unlimited liability partnership structure, an anomaly in the investment world, is at the heart of everything we do. This structure ensures we are bound together and helps us to put our clients’ interests first.” Andrew Telfer, joint senior partner Photography by Chris Close. Welcome 03 Welcome Hello and welcome to Baillie Gifford’s first company-wide governance and sustainability report, which comes as both the firm and industry are at an inflection point.This change is largely down to two factors: investors are increasingly choosing passive trackers rather than active stock- pickers and employers are moving their employee pension funds from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes.
    [Show full text]
  • Changing Matter the Multiple Earths on This Catalog’S Cover Were Envisioned by a Machi- Ne Asked to Imagine What the Earth Looks Like
    Changing Matter The multiple Earths on this catalog’s cover were envisioned by a machi- ne asked to imagine what the Earth looks like. No two are exactly alike. Every shifting cloud and continent depicts a different iteration of how the Earth could be. The ways we build our world each day are similarly dynamic. Every de- cision made, no matter how trivial, branches into endless potential paths. More possibilities exist for our Earth’s future than any one person could come up with alone. Some paths will lead us to a world ruled by love and dignity, where life flourishes. Other worlds will differ still. Some will see us separate into opposing sides and destroy ourselves, while others will see us work together, ready to explore the cosmos. Many more future worlds remain dormant, until we bring them to life. Which world will you choose to help create? Trained on 14,142 images from https://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/ using StyleGAN. With special thanks to Gene Kogan. Changing Matter a catalog of ideas for whole-systems transformation The roots of Changing Matter Life and lessons leading up to this catalog 2 The roots of Changing Matter Our studio, PCH Innovations, emerged from my belief in intersecting exploratory curiosity, rebel- We humans are all lious deviance, and creative invention with incumbent systems across industries, institutions, and ‘under construction’… disciplines. I pretty much wanted to turn everything around me upside down. This was an impulse that started for me at the age of five (sorry mum, sorry dad, sorry sisters). The Unknown is where Back in 1996, when I had the honor to participate in BMW’s iconic stealth project ‘Deep the magic is… Truth Blue’, some people in our crazy project team started to realize that, in the age of per- can be found in an manent disruption, it is not assets we need to leverage any more (sorry BMW), but rather very informal and highly disruptive, experimental networks of people, institu- indeterminate world with tions, collectives, and organizations.
    [Show full text]
  • Max-Planck-Institut Für Mathematik in Den Naturwissenschaften Leipzig
    Max-Planck-Institut fur¨ Mathematik in den Naturwissenschaften Leipzig Risk Preferences in Time Lotteries (revised version: September 2021) by Yonatan Berman and Mark Kirstein Preprint no.: 26 2020 Risk Preferences in Time Lotteries∗ Yonatan Berman† Mark Kirstein‡ 20th August 2021 An important but understudied question in economics is how people choose when facing uncertainty in the timing of events. Here we study preferences over time lotteries, in which the payment amount is certain but the payment time is un- certain. Expected discounted utility theory (EDUT) predicts decision makers to be risk-seeking over time lotteries. We explore a normative model of growth- optimality, in which decision makers maximise the long-term growth rate of their wealth. Revisiting experimental evidence on time lotteries, we find that growth- optimality accords better with the evidence than EDUT. We outline future ex- periments to scrutinise further the plausibility of growth-optimality. Keywords Ergodicity Economics, Growth-Optimal Preferences, Time Lotteries JEL Classification C61 · D01 · D81 · D9 arXiv:2108.08366v1 [econ.TH] 18 Aug 2021 ∗ We benefited from detailed comments by Alexander Adamou and Ole Peters. We also wish to thank Alex Kacelnik for fruitful discussions, along with seminar participants at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, University of Duisburg-Essen, and Rutgers University, and with conference participants at the D-TEA Conference 2020 and the 2020 Annual Meeting of the German Economic Association. † B [email protected], London Mathematical Laboratory ‡ B [email protected], Max-Planck-Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences 1 1 Introduction Real-world economic decisions are usually a combination of at least two types of uncertainties.
    [Show full text]
  • Foundations of Cryptoeconomic Systems
    Foundations of Cryptoeconomic Systems By Shermin Voshmgir and Michael Zargham∗ Blockchain networks and similar cryptoeconomic networks are systems, specifically complex systems. They are adaptive networks with multi-scale spatiotemporal dynamics. Individual actions to- wards a collective goal are incentivized with \purpose-driven" to- kens. These tokens are equipped with cryptoeconomic mecha- nisms allowing a decentralized network to simultaneously main- tain a universal state layer, support peer-to-peer settlement, and incentivize collective action. These networks therefore provide a mission-critical and safety-critical regulatory infrastructure for au- tonomous agents in untrusted economic networks. They also pro- vide a rich, real-time data set reflecting all economic activities in their systems. Advances in network science and data science can thus be leveraged to design and analyze these economic sys- tems in a manner consistent with the best practices of modern systems engineering. Research that reflects all aspects of these so- cioeconomic networks needs (i) a complex systems approach, (ii) interdisciplinary research, and (iii) a combination of economic and engineering methods, here referred to as \economic systems engi- neering," for the regulation and control of these socio-economic systems. This manuscript provides foundations for further re- search activities that build on these assumptions, including spe- cific research questions and methodologies for future research in this field. I. Introduction Cryptoeconomics is an emerging field of economic coordination games in cryptographically secured peer-to-peer networks. The term cryptoeconomics was casually coined in the developer community. The earliest recording is a citation from a talk by Vlad Zamfir in 2015 (Zamfir, 2015), which was later loosely formalized in blog posts and talks by Vitalik Buterin (Buterin, 2017a), (Buterin, 2017b).
    [Show full text]
  • Time Resolution of the Probability Weighting Puzzle
    Time Resolution of the Probability Weighting Puzzle Mark Kirstein B [email protected] @nonergodicMark lml.org.uk/people/mark-kirstein DAAD PRIME Information Seminar, 11-12 March 2019, Bonn Agenda 1 Project Idea 2 Partner Institutions Mark Kirstein Time Resolution of the Probability Weighting Puzzle Bonn, 11-12 March 2019 2 / 11 Background of the Project Idea – Ergodicity Economics Ergodicity Problem in Economics The problem of a theoretical justification of the replacement of time averages by ensemble averages is the ergodicity problem. Ergodic Theory: proper mathematics to treat random variables & stochastic processes Mark Kirstein Time Resolution of the Probability Weighting Puzzle Bonn, 11-12 March 2019 3 / 11 Time Averaging vs Ensemble Averaging time t t∗ n X t (x 1) X t (x 2) X t (x 3) X x 3,• time-averaged X t (x 4) observable (growth rate) X t (x 5) realisations or universes Ensemble Average aka hX •,t∗ i Expectation Value E[ X •,t∗ ] Mark Kirstein Time Resolution of the Probability Weighting Puzzle Bonn, 11-12 March 2019 4 / 11 Standard Gamble – Coin Toss r up · x t 1.5 · x t > > x x t @ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @R r down · x t @R 0.6 · x t - - t t + δt t t + δt Mark Kirstein Time Resolution of the Probability Weighting Puzzle Bonn, 11-12 March 2019 5 / 11 Removing the noise Multiplicative Repetition Wt W h ti ∆W W + (t t ) h i t0 − 0 ∆t ∆ lnW W exp (t t ) h i t0 · − 0 ∆t 1 EUR 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 rounds T Mark Kirstein Time Resolution of the Probability Weighting Puzzle Bonn, 11-12 March 2019 6 / 11 Decision Making Under Uncertainty If decision criteria are based on ensemble averages .
    [Show full text]