We use household data to estimate the cost of participating to financial markets and the cross sectional dispersion of stock market optimism. Our analysis is based on a mean-variance framework, within which we derive structural decision rules for individual composition of the risky assets...

This paper tests stylized facts and theories from behavioral economics and laboratory experiments using a randomized field experiment of our design. A major South African consumer credit lender issued 60,000 scripted direct mail solicitations where several marketing “treatments†were...

The financial crisis in 1997 caused serious deterioration of the Korean economy. We examined the credit crunch in Korea and how it affected household welfare. With household panel data from 1996-1998, we estimated a switching regression model of a consumption Euler equation, which is augmented...

In this paper, we analyze the strength and nature of bequest motives in the United States using data from the 2000 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The results of our analysis suggest that bequest motives are very strong in the United States and that they are altruistically motivated. This...

This paper analyzes a unique dataset, which contains results of a large-scale experiment in the credit card market. Two strange phenomena that suggest time inconsistency in consumer behavior are observed: First, consumers prefer an introductory offer which has a lower interest rate with a...

This paper investigates the uncertainty in variance and covariance of asset returns. It is commonly believed that these second moments can be estimated very accurately. However, time varying volatility and nonnormality of asset returns can lead to imprecise variance estimates. Using CRSP value...

We solve in closed form the optimal consumption / portfolio choice problem for the class of isoelastic utility functions under incomplete information about the mean return of the stock price. Our approach consists in converting the original investor's problem into an equivalent program where the...

This paper investigates the uncertainty in variance and covariance of asset returns. It is commonly believed that these second moments can be estimated very accurately. However, time varying volatility and nonnormality of asset returns can lead to imprecise variance estimates. Using CRSP value...

Money managers are rewarded for increasing the value of assets under management, and predominantly so in the mutual fund industry. This gives the manager an implicit incentive to exploit the well-documented positive fund-flows to relative-performance relationship by manipulating her risk...

A government policy regarding the reduction of state shares in state-owned enterprises (SOE) triggered a crash in the Chinese stock market. The sus- tained depression even after policy adjustments constitutes a puzzle— the so called “state-share paradox.”The empirical evidence shows...