Abstrakt
We develop and implement linear formulations of convex stochastic dominance relations based on decreasing absolute risk aversion (DARA) for discrete and polyhedral choice sets. Our approach is based on a piecewise-exponential representation of utility and a local linear approximation to the exponentiation of log marginal utility.
An empirical application to historical stock market data suggests that a passive stock market portfolio is DARA stochastic dominance inefficient relative to concentrated portfolios of small-cap stocks. The mean-variance rule and Nth-order stochastic dominance rules substantially underestimate the degree of market portfolio inefficiency because they do not penalize the unfavorable skewness of diversified portfolios, in violation of DARA.