Using individual-level data on homeowner debt and defaults from 1997 to 2008, we show that borrowing against the increase in home equity by existing homeowners is responsible for a significant fraction of both the rise in U.S. household leverage from 2002 to 2006 and the increase in defaults...

Using bilateral data on international equity and bond flows, we find that the prediction of the International Capital Asset Pricing Model is partially met and that global equity markets might be more integrated than global bond markets. Moreover, over the turbulent 1998-2001 period characterised...

Corporate bond returns in the major developed economies increase with risk, as measured by maturity and ratings. From a pricing perspective, we find little to no evidence against the World CAPM model, where the market consists out of equity, sovereign and corporate bonds. However, from a factor...

We study the effects of low short-term interest rates on the optimal portfolio allocation in Markowitz portfolios and Risk parity portfolios. We propose a measure of Portfolio Instability, gauging the amount of optimal portfolio shifts needed to respond to exogenous shocks to the expected risk...

Transaction-cost models in continuous-time markets are considered. Given that investors decide to buy or sell at certain time instants, we study the existence of trading strategies that reach a certain final wealth level in continuous-time markets, under the assumption that transaction costs,...

Undiversifiable (or systematic risk) has long been an enemy of investors. Many countercyclical strategies have been developed to counter this. However, like all insurance types, these strategies are generally costly to implement, and over time can significantly reduce portfolio returns in long...

We study how and to what extent private households are affected by the recent financial crisis and how their financial decisions are influenced by this shock. Our analysis reveals that individuals with low levels of financial literacy are less likely to have invested in the stock market and thus...

The causes of the 2008 collapse and subsequent surge in global capital flows remain an open and highly controversial issue. Employing a factor model coupled with a dataset of high-frequency portfolio capital flows to 50 economies, the paper finds that common shocks – key crisis events as well...

In this paper we study the impact of shocks to global risk and global risk aversion (such as Lehman) as well as shocks with a more idiosyncratic nature (such as the euro debt crisis) on cross border portfolio flows, taking the perspective of foreign investors. We find robust evidence of...

We explore what private market data can tell us about the appropriate discount rates for valuing investments in climate change abatement. We estimate the term structure of discount rates for real estate up to the very long horizons relevant for investments in climate change abatement. The...