Is the stock market boom a result of the baby boom? This paper develops an overlapping generations model in which a baby boom is modeled as a high realization of a random birth rate, and the price of capital is determined endogenously by a convex cost of adjustment. A baby boom increases...

The subjective distribution of growth rates of aggregate consumption is characterized by pessimism if it is first-order stochastically dominated by the objective distribution. Uniform pessimism is a leftward translation of the objective distribution of the logarithm of the growth rate. The...

Although the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem holds under a linear estate tax schedule, it fails to hold under a nonlinear estate tax schedule. In a representative consumer economy, a temporary lump-sum tax increase reduces contemporaneous consumption. If different consumers face different marginal...

The fact that consumers do not know in advance the dates at which they will die effects their individual consumption and portfolio decisions. In general, some consumers will end up leaving bequests at death, even if they have no bequest motive, simply because they happen to die at a time when...

This paper analyzes the effects of lump-sum tax policy in an overlapping generations model in which consumers have uncertain longevity. It extends previous analyses by considering the case in which private insurance arrangements are actuarially unfair. In addition, it considers the polar case of...

This paper develops a tractable stochastic overlapping generations model to analyze the equilibrium equity premium and growth rate of the capital stock in the presence of a defined-benefit Social Security system. If the Social Security Trust Fund increases the share of its portfolio held in...

This paper analyzes the dynamic behavior of capital accumulationin Stockman's (1981) cash-in-advance model. If the cash-in-advance constraint applies only to consuittion, then money is superneutral along the transition path as well as in the long run. Alternatively, if the cash-in-advance...

Jim Poterba finds that consumers do not spend all of their assets during retirement, and he projects that the demand for assets will remain high when the baby boomers retire. Based on his forecast of continued high demand for capital, Poterba rejects the asset market meltdown hypothesis, which...

This paper examines the implications of adverse selection in the private annuity market for the pricing of private annuities and the consequent effects on constrption and bequest behavior. With privately known heterogeneous mortality probabilities, adverse selection causes the rate of return on...

I calculate exact expressions for risk premia, term premia, and the premium on levered equity in a framework that includes habit formation, keeping/catching up with the Joneses, and possible departures from rational expectations. Closed-form expressions for the first and second moments of...