Savers with uncertain life spans cannot stick to long-term investment plans when they invest directly in liquid assets. Before horizons are known, all savers will plan to roll over their short-term assets if returns turn out high. Ex post, the short-term investors will consume their liquid...

This paper addresses the relationship between age distributions, national savings and the current account balance. The results point to substantial demographic effects, with increases in both the youth and old-age dependency ratios associated with lower savings rates. They also point to...

Recent research indicates that the marked increase in U.S. income inequality over the last twenty-five years has not been matched by a similar increase in consumption inequality. This paper examines the role of saving/dissaving in a house as a vehicle for consumption smoothing. Data from the...

During the early 1990s, asset prices and investment were unusually weak throughout the industrial world. This paper highlights this stylized fact, and connects it with another: in most of the industrial world, asset markets boomed for several years before collapsing around 1989. The paper...

Remarks at the Quarterly Regional Economic Press Briefing, New York City.

Remarks at Dominican College, Orangeburg, New York.

Remarks at the Washington and Lee University H. Parker Willis Lecture in Political Economics, Lexington, Virginia.