Fat tails arise endogenously in asset prices from supply/demand, with or without jump processes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that fat-tailed distributions in asset prices naturally emerge from supply and demand dynamics modeled by Levy processes, with or without jumps, providing a theoretical foundation aligning with empirical market data.

Contribution

It introduces a model where fat tails arise endogenously from demand-supply quotients of Levy processes, linking tail behavior to the price adjustment function in economic modeling.

Findings

Fat tails are shown to originate from demand-supply ratios modeled by Levy processes.

The tail exponent relates directly to the price adjustment function G.

Empirical asset data with tail exponents around 3 are consistent with the model.

Abstract

We show that the quotient of Levy processes of jump-diffusion type has a fat-tailed distribution. An application is to price theory in economics. We show that fat tails arise endogenously from modeling of price change based on an excess demand analysis resulting in a quotient of arbitrarily correlated demand and supply whether or not jump discontinuities are present. The assumption is that supply and demand are described by drift terms, Brownian (i.e., Gaussian) and compound Poisson jump processes. If $P^{-1}dP/dt$ (the relative price change in an interval $dt$) is given by a suitable function of relative excess demand, $\left( \mathcal{D}% -\mathcal{S}\right) /\mathcal{S}$ (where $\mathcal{D}$ and $\mathcal{S}$ are demand and supply), then the distribution has tail behavior $F\left( x\right) \sim x^{-\zeta}$ for a power $\zeta$ that depends on the function $G$ in $P^{-1}dP/dt=G\left( \mathcal{D}/\mathcal{S}\right) $. For $G\left( x\right) \sim\left\vert x\right\vert ^{1/q}$ one has $\zeta=q.$ The empirical data for assets typically yields a value, $\zeta\tilde{=}3,$ or $\ \zeta \in\left[ 3,5\right] $ for some markets. The discrepancy between the empirical result and theory never arises if one models price dynamics using basic economics methodology, i.e., generalized Walrasian adjustment, rather than the usual starting point for classical finance which assumes a normal distribution of price changes. The function $G$ is deterministic, and can be calibrated with a smaller data set. The results establish a simple link between the decay exponent of the density function and the price adjustment function, a feature that can improve methodology for risk assessment. The mathematical results can be applied to other problems involving the relative difference or quotient of Levy processes of jump-diffusion type.