Tractable Almost Stochastic Dominance

LL-Almost Stochastic Dominance (LL-ASD) is a relaxation of the Stochastic Dominance (SD) concept proposed by Leshno and Levy that explains more of realistic preferences observed in practice than SD alone does. Unfortunately, numerical applications of this concept, such as identifying if a given portfolio is efficient or determining a marketed portfolio that dominates a given benchmark, are computationally prohibitive due to the structure of LL-ASD. We propose a new Almost Stochastic Dominance (ASD) concept that is computationally tractable. For instance, a marketed dominating portfolio can be identified by solving a simple linear programming problem. Moreover, the new concept performs well on all the intuitive examples from the literature, and in some cases leads to more realistic predictions than the earlier concept. We develop some properties of ASD, formulate efficient optimization models, and apply the concept to analyzing investors’ preferences between bonds and stocks for the long run.

► New relation of Almost Stochastic Dominance and its equivalent characterizations. ► Linear programming problems to almost dominate a benchmark portfolio. ► Preference of stocks over bonds in the long run.