By using their financial reserves efficiently, pension funds can smooth shocks on asset returns, and can thus facilitate intergenerational risk-sharing. In addition to the primary benefit of improved time diversification, this form of risk allocation affords the additional benefit of allowing...

This paper examines the optimal design of pension plans when the health status during retirement is uncertain. Assuming that the health status affects both life expectancy and the marginal utility of consumption, choice between a lump-sum payment and an annuity can be welfare-enhancing if the...

This paper studies the interdependence between property insurance and portfolio selection. The insurance premium of property loss is shown to play the role of subsistence consumption in the analysis. Then, "security" becomes a necessity good and an increase in any insurance parameter would make...

In this paper we model how the existence of different beliefs about the underlying fundamental value of a currency affects the dynamics of the exchange rate. We find that a divergence of beliefs creates the potential for waves of optimism and pessimism that alternate in an unpredictable way....

In the simple Allingham-Sandmo portfolio model of tax evasion an expected utility maximizer will cheat more than what is estimated in empirical studies. Two main types of explanation have been suggested as solutions to this puzzle: (1) Tax payers act according to some non-expected utility...

This article studies the equivalence between labor and consumption taxes in a stochastic context, where the government can undertake an active portfolio management strategy by investing in both risk-free and risky assets. Using a two-period model we show that such taxes let consumers make the...

This paper characterizes the asymptotic behaviour, as the number of assets gets arbitrarily large, of the portfolio weights for the class of tangency portfolios belonging to the Markowitz paradigm. It is assumed that the joint distribution of asset returns is characterized by a general factor...

This paper investigates the limit properties of mean-variance (mv) and arbitrage pricing (ap) trading strategies using a general dynamic factor model, as the number of assets diverge to infinity. It extends the results obtained in the literature for the exact pricing case to two other cases of...

This interdisciplinary paper explains how mathematical techniques of stochastic optimal control can be applied to the recent subprime mortgage crisis. Why did the financial markets fail to anticipate the recent debt crisis, despite the large literature in mathematical finance concerning optimal...

We propose a model that delivers endogenous variations in term spreads driven primarily by banks' portfolio decision and their appetite to bear the risk of maturity transformation. We first show that fluctuations of the future profitability of banks' portfolios affect their ability to cover for...