This paper investigates the relationship between wealth, ageing and saving behaviour of private households by using pooled cross sections of German consumption survey data. Different components of wealth are distinguished, as their impact on the savings rate is not homogeneous. On average, the...

By allowing for imperfectly informed markets and the role of private information, we offer new insights about observed deviations of portfolio concentrations in domestic relative to foreign risky assets, or "home bias", from what standard finance models predict. Our model ascribes the "bias" to...

This paper is concerned with testing the time series implications of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) due to Sharpe (1964) and Lintner (1965), when the number of securities, N, is large relative to the time dimension, T, of the return series. In the case of cross-sectionally correlated...

Do wealth shocks affect the health of the elderly in developed countries? The economic literature is skeptical about such effects which have so far only been found for poor retirees in poor countries. In this paper I show that wealth shocks also matter for the health of wealthy retirees in the...

Using quarterly data for the U.K. from 1993 through 2012, we document that in economic downturns a smaller fraction of unemployed workers change their career when starting a new job. Moreover, the proportion of total hires that involves a career change for the worker also drops in recessions....

In this paper we aim to trace the roots of the ongoing economic mayhem and to unmask the chorus of the tragedy which plays on the world stage. The main thesis of our work is that, despite the triumphant rhetoric praising the merits of perfect competition, the global fields of the dysfunctional...

The vast majority of firms in developing economies are micro and small enterprises owned by families whose members also provide the labour to the units. Often, they fail to grow in size even with the relaxation of credit constraints. In this paper, we show that frictions in the labour market...

Dimensions of cognitive skills are potentially important but often neglected determinants of the central economic outcomes that shape overall well-being over the life course. There exists enormous variation among households in their rates of wealth accumulation, their holdings of financial...

While politically attractive in order to generate tax revenues, the effects of a financial transaction tax (FTT) are scientifically disputed, not the least because seemingly small details of its implementation may matter a lot. In this paper, we provide experimental evidence on the different...

College students now use various forms of unsecured credit such as private student loans and credit cards to finance college. Access to these credit lines and the interest rates charged on these loans can vary significantly across credit scores. In this paper, we analyze if credit status, as...