This paper provides a broad empirical examination of the major currencies' roles in international capital markets, with a special emphasis on the first year of the euro. A contribution is made as to how to measure these roles, both for international financing as well as for international...

We analytically show that a common across rich/poor individuals Stone-Geary utility function with subsistence consumption in the context of a simple two-asset portfolio-choice model is capable of qualitatively and quantitatively explaining: (i) the higher saving rates of the rich, (ii) the...

We study the life cycle of portfolio allocation following for 15 years a large random sample of Norwegian households using error-free data on all components of households’ investments drawn from the Tax Registry. Both, participation in the stock market and the portfolio share in stocks, have...

The Eurozone fiscal crisis has created pressure for institutional harmonization, but skeptics argue that cultural predispositions can prevent convergence in behavior. Our paper derives a robust cultural classification of European countries and utilizes unique data on natives and immigrants to...

This paper introduces endogenous preference evolution into a Lucas-type economy and explores its consequences for investors' trading strategy and the dynamics of asset prices. In equilibrium, investors herd and hold the same portfolio of risky assets which is biased toward stocks of sectors that...

Microeconomic modeling of investors behavior in financial markets and its results crucially depends on assumptions about the mathematical shape of the underlying preference functions as well as their parameterizations. With the purpose to shed some light on the question, which preferences...