Languages differ widely in the ways they encode time. I test the hypothesis that languages that grammatically associate the future and the present, foster future-oriented behavior. This prediction arises naturally when well-documented effects of language structure are merged with models of...

This paper models Continuous Workout Mortgages (CWMs) in an economic environment with refinancings and prepayments by employing a market-observable variable such as the house price index of the pertaining locality. Our main results include: (a) explicit modelling of repayment and interest-only...

Our paper provides a complete characterization of leverage and default in binomial economies with financial assets serving as collateral. Our Binomial No-Default Theorem states that any equilibrium is equivalent (in real allocations and prices) to another equilibrium in which there is no...

Most theories of risky choice postulate that a decision maker maximizes the expectation of a Bernoulli (or utility or similar) function. We tour 60 years of empirical search and conclude that no such functions have yet been found that are useful for out-of-sample prediction. Nor do we find...

A recent literature shows how an increase in volatility reduces leverage. However, in order to explain pro-cyclical leverage it assumes that bad news increases volatility, that is, it assumes an inverse relationship between first and second moments of asset returns. This paper suggests a reason...

We present a dynamic model of venture capital financing, described as a sequential investment problem with uncertain outcome. Each venture has a critical, but unknown threshold beyond which it cannot progress. If the threshold is reached before the completion of the project, then the project...

The use of equilibrium models in economics springs from the desire for parsimonious models of economic phenomena that take human reasoning into account. This approach has been the cornerstone of modern economic theory. We explain why this is so, extolling the virtues of equilibrium theory; then...

Least absolute deviations (LAD) estimation of linear time-series models is considered under conditional heteroskedasticity and serial correlation. The limit theory of the LAD estimator is obtained without assuming the finite density condition for the errors that is required in standard LAD...

Statistics are developed to test for the presence of an asymptotic discontinuity (or infinite density or peakedness) in a probability density at the median. The approach makes use of work by Knight (1998) on L_1 estimation asymptotics in conjunction with non-parametric kernel density estimation...

This paper explores the general equilibrium impact of social security portfolio diversification into private securities, either through the trust fund or via private accounts. The analysis depends critically on heterogeneity in saving, in production, in assets, and in taxes. Under fairly general...