The Impact of Regret and Rejoicing on The Allocation of Risky Assets

In this article, we propose to analyze the impact of regret and rejoicing on the allocation of risky assets. Regret and rejoicing are two emotions that are defined by comparing the result of an action retained by an agent with respect to the result that he could have obtained from an alternative action. We show that the choice of the alternative action impacts the allocation of risky assets. When it is defined in relation to the ex post maximum expected result, the agent only receives regret. This may lead, for low values of the marginal cost of risk, to retain more risky assets than an agent who maximized a standard expected utility function. On the contrary, the agent could express a preference for certainty and defines his emotions in relation to what a total investment in risk-free assets would bring to him. In this case, we show that investment in risky assets is weaker than the one realized by an agent who maximized a standard expected utility function.