This paper develops a detailed partial equilibrium model of housing wealth's role over the life-cycle to explore (1) housing's dual role as a consumption and investment good; (2) the significance of the mortgage contract being in nominal and not real terms; and (3) the tax benefits associated...

A relevant issue in the procyclicality debate over Basel II is the type of rating which could be preferred from both an individual and an economy-wide point of view in the light of the relation between capital requirements and the business cycle. The objective of the present paper is to evaluate...

The analysis of many complex problems and complex dynamic systems suggests that there are dependencies between high complexity and properties of the underlying structures, as the existence of large grids, non-regularities and inhomogeneous structures and irregular flows of information. These...

The aim of this paper is to show, within the mean-variance framework, how the market belief can be constructed as the result of the aggregation of heterogeneous beliefs and how the market equilibrium prices of risky assets can thus be determined. The heterogeneous beliefs are defined in terms of...

Some researchers and many practitioners have move from the classic mean-variance (Markowitz, 1959) portfolio theory to a new portfolio optimization framework based on downside-risk measures that are more appropriate to the investor’s preferences. Moreover, several studies (Friedman and...

We solve the optimal saving/portfolio-choice problem in an intertemporal recursive utility framework. Our solution to this problem is sufficiently general to allow (i) risk aversion to vary independently of intertemporal substitution, (ii) many risky assets, (iii) stochastic labor income that...