This paper contrasts the investment behavior of different financial institutions in debt securities as a response to past returns. For identification, I use unique security-level data from the German Micro-database Securities Holdings Statistics. Banks and investment funds respond in a...

This paper empirically investigates the transmission of systemic risk across the Euro Area by employing a Global VAR model. We find that a union aggregate systemic risk shock results in a sharp decline in output, with two thirds of the response to be attributed to cross-country spillovers. The...

I identify new patterns in countries' economic performance over the 2007-2014 period based on proximity through distance, trade, and finance to the US subprime mortgage and Eurozone debt crisis areas. To understand the causes of the cross-country variation, I develop an open economy model with...

The booms and busts in U.S. stock prices over the post-war period can to a large extent be explained by fluctuations in investors' subjective capital gains expectations. Survey measures of these expectations display excessive optimism at market peaks and excessive pessimism at market throughs....

We investigate whether acquiring more education when young has long-term effects on risktaking behavior in financial markets and whether the effects spill over to spouses and children. There is substantial evidence that more educated people are more likely to invest in the stock market. However,...

We study the trading behavior of individual investors in leverage bank-issued products around earnings announcements. The trading activity increases substantially around earnings announcements. Aggregated individual investor trading is strongly correlated, both pre- and post event. We find...

We study the impact of retail investor information demand on trading in bank-issued investment and leverage structured products, which are specifically designed for retail investors. Stock-specific information demand positively predicts speculative trading activity. Further, we find a positive...