Housing wealth is a major component of households' wealth. Since house prices fluctuate considerably over time, an important question is how house price fluctuations affect households' consumption decisions. This may happen through at least two channels: (i) a wealth channel, or (ii) by relaxing...

Financing retirement benefits is probably the most significant fiscal challenge that governments in industrial economies will be facing in the next few decades. Social security reform has therefore become an important public policy issue for many countries and various reform proposals have been...