In this paper, we study the co-movements between stock market indices and real economic activity over the business cycle in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, using two complementary approaches in our analysis. First, we identify the turning points in real economy...

This paper analyzes the wealth effect on consumption in France by relying on two original household surveys. First, it provides the first estimate of the marginal propensity to consume out of wealth based on micro data for France (Enquête Patrimoine 2009, Insee): a low but significant wealth...

The existence of an equity premium puzzle has been largely emphasized in the empirical literature: one observes low risky assets holding that the standard portfolio choice model (with expected and discounting utility and homothetic preferences) is not able to explain. Besides modifications of...

The aim of this paper is to build and estimate a macroeconomic model of credit risk for the French manufacturing sector. This model is based on Wilson's CreditPortfolioView model (1997a, 1997b); it enables us to simulate loss distributions for a credit portfolio for several macroeconomic...

We evaluate how departure from normality may affect the allocation of assets. A Taylor series expansion of the expected utility allows to focus on certain moments and to compute numerically the optimal portfolio allocation. A decisive advantage of this approach is that it remains operational...

Correlations between international equity markets are often claimed to increase during periods of high volatility, therefore the benefits of international diversification are reduced when they are most needed, i.e. during crises. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between...

We analyze the term structure of real interest rates in a general equilibrium model with incomplete markets and borrowing constraints. Agents are subject to both aggregate and idiosyncratic income shocks, which latter may force them into early portfolio liquidation in a bad aggregate state. We...

Based on CAMPBELL and COCHRANE [1999] Consumption-Based Asset Pricing Model (C)CAPM with habit formation, this paper provides empirical evidence in favor of the importance of habit persistence in asset pricing. Using U.S data, we show that the surplus consumption ratio is a strong predictor of...

Measuring an intermediation rate is a good way of capturing the importance of the role of financial intermediaries in a given economy and their position in the face of the growth in market financing. Results show a quite sizeable decline in the financial intermediation rate in France over the...

This paper studies the relationship between consumption and wealth based on the concept of cointegration. The analysis focuses on French data over the 1987 - 2006 period. This relationship is expressed in two ways: in terms of Marginal Propensity to Consume out of wealth (MPC) and in terms of...