The asset pricing model with external habit formation predicts that the equity premium depends on consumption changes relative to the habit level, implying a response that varies over the business cycle. We test this implication using a VAR model of the U.S. postwar economy whose time-varying...

This paper uses the credit-friction model developed by C´urdia and Woodford, in a series of papers, as the basis for attempting to mimic the behavior of credit spreads in moderate as well as in times of crisis. We are able to generate movements in representative credit spreads that are, at...

This paper explores the hypothesis that the sources of economic and financial crises differ from non-crisis business cycle fluctuations. We employ Markov-switching Bayesian vector autoregressions (MS-BVARs) to gather evidence about the hypothesis on a long annual U.S. sample running from 1890 to...

A 7 variate SVAR model is used to identify the presence and causes of overvaluation in real house prices in Australia from 2002 to 2008. An important feature of the model is the development of a housing sector where long-run restrictions are derived from economic theory to identify housing...

In India, the pace of financial innovation was relatively slow until the initiation of the financial liberalization program in 1991-92. The subsequent financial reforms have had important implications for the user costs of assets and resulted in significant substitution among them. Hence there...

We investigate the impact of means tested public income transfers on post-retirement decumulation and portfolio choice using theoretical simulations and panel data on Australian Age Pensioners. Means tested public pension payments in Australia have broad coverage and give insight into the...

Oil exporters typically do not consider below-ground assets when allocating their sovereign wealth fund portfolios, and ignore above-ground assets when extracting oil. We present a unified framework for considering both. Subsoil oil should alter a fund’s portfolio through additional leverage...

Households in many developed economies now reach retirement with lump sums of financial wealth accumulated through defined contribution retirement plans. Managing wealth from individual accumulations and public provision is critical to retirement welfare. We study the dynamics of retirement...

This paper investigates the influence of liquidity in the major developed and major developing economies on commodity prices. Liquidity is taken to be M2. A novel finding is that unanticipated increases in the BRIC countries’ liquidity is associated with significant and persistent increases in...