International Portfolio Selection with Exchange Risk: A Behavioural Portfolio Theory Perspective

Abstract

This paper analyzes international portfolio selection with exchange risk based on behavioural portfolio theory (BPT). We characterize the conditions under which the BPT problem with a single foreign market has an optimal solution, and show that the optimal portfolio contains the traditional mean-variance efficient portfolio without consideration of exchange risk, and an uncorrelated component constructed to hedge against exchange risk. We illustrate that the optimal portfolio must be mean-variance efficient with exchange risk, while the same is not true from the perspective of local investors unless certain conditions are satisfied. We further establish that international portfolio selection in the BPT with multiple foreign markets consists of two sequential decisions. Investors first select the optimal BPT portfolio in each market, overlooking covariances among markets, and then allocate funds across markets according to a specific rule to achieve mean-variance efficiency or to minimize the loss in efficiency.