This paper explores the quantitative impact of the Baby Boom on stock and bond returns. It constructs a neoclassical growth model with overlapping generations, in which agents make a portfolio decision over risky capital and safe bonds in zero net supply. The model has exogenous technology and...

In this article we construct a model in which agents exhibit preference for ownership with respect to a durable (house). Ownership is modeled as a continuous function of debt service normalized by the price of the house. We study the utility optimization problem of an investor not endowed with...

I develop a Markov model of samrt money chasing past winning funds while taking into account associated costs. The model also allows market capital entry and exit. The steady-state capital allocations re derived using constant transition probabilities. The results sugget that down side risk is...

While the existence of fixed costs in entering asset markets is the leading rationalization of the "participation puzzle" -the fact that most households do not hold stocks, despite the diversification gains and the significant risk-premium involved-, most motivations of these fixed costs are as...

Bubbles are generally considered the outcome of investor irrationality or informational asymmetry, both objectionable in efficient markets with rational investors. We introduce an Intertemporal-CAPM with market clearing between high- and low-risk-averse rational investors who learn the CAPM...

This paper presents a model developed to explain the life-cycle patterns in both homeownership and portfolio allocation, and the relationship between them, using a model of rational agents. Two key innovations are incorporated into this model. First, housing is explicitly modeled as both a...

In this paper we ask the empirical question are bond covenants priced? Consistent with the Costly Contracting Hypothesis (CCH) developed by Smith and Warner (1979), we find that they are. We document a negative relation between the promised yield on corporate debt issues and the presence of...

The paper explores the implications of means of payment substitutability and capital mobility on the properties of the money demand, using the Thomas (1985) stochastic dynamic optimising model, where the specific role of money is explicitly accounted for. Extending the model to a case in which...

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...