The act of choosing can influence maximizing behaviour for at least two distinct reasons: 1) process significance and 2) decisional inescapability. The constructive programme of the paper is combined with critical appraisal of the implications of these concerns for rational decisions about...

The relationship between the demographic structure and the saving rate of a society is the reflection of the aggregation of the behaviour of heterogeneous households, differing from one another in the type of living arrangements and in the characteristics of their members. In order to contribute...

The paper presents the main results of the Eurosystem�s Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) with an emphasis on the data for Italy in the international context. The paper examines households� socio-demographic characteristics, assets and income distribution, participation...

This paper builds a dynamic model of the information flow between partially informed financial institutions and a public agency. The financial institutions decide how to allocate their portfolio between a risk-free technology with a known payoff and a risky technology whose payoff is unknown....

We develop a model which accounts for the observed equity premium and average risk free rate, without implying counterfactually high risk aversion. The model also does well in accounting for business cycle phenomena.

The paper investigates the opinions of Italian families on the advisability and the possibility of saving. The analysis was carried out using the monthly micro-data underlying the Italian consumer survey conducted by Isae up to 2010 and by Istat thereafter. The results show that in recent years...

The role of movements in real rates in explaining the relationship between long and short-term interest rates is explored using a model of optimal government debt management.

We use household survey data to construct a direct measure of absolute risk aversion based on the maximum price a consumer is willing to pay to buy a risky security. We relate this measure to consumers' endowment and attributes and to measures of background risk and liquidity constraints. We...