We apply diversity indices, such as the Gini-Simpson index and entropy related indices, to the study of the distribution of individual asset holdings in the United States in 2007 and 2009. We examine the impact of the 2008 recession on asset diversity and the way individual socio-economic...

By allowing for imperfectly informed markets and the role of private information, we offer new insights about observed deviations of portfolio concentrations in domestic relative to foreign risky assets, or "home bias", from what standard finance models predict. Our model ascribes the "bias" to...

In February 2015, the editors of eight health economics journals sent out an editorial statement which aims to reduce the extent of specification searching and reminds referees to accept studies that: "have potential scientific and publication merit regardless of whether such studies' empirical...

This paper examines the empirical link between severance pay and corporate finance. Severance pay is an economic debt of the employer and hence should be taken into account by the market in its assessments of risk. Using a hand collected dataset of accounting data from Italy and Austria we find...

We investigate the socio-economic determinants of mortgage delinquency in 12 EU countries and observe that income volatility significantly increases the mortgage delinquency risk. This pattern even holds for borrowers with higher-income profiles if volatility in income is high enough. From this...

This paper examines the potential costs and benefits associated with a risk-sharing policy imposed on all higher education institutions. Under such a program, institutions would be required to pay for a portion of the student loans among which their students defaulted. I examine the predicted...

This paper quantifies the extent of heterogeneity in consumption responses to changes in real interest rates and house prices in the four largest economies in the euro area: France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. We first calibrate a life-cycle incomplete-markets model with a financial asset and...

We report on a laboratory experiment testing for the presence of loss aversion, as separate from risk aversion, utilizing an asset integration protocol designed to ensure that a loss of cash provided by the experimenter is viewed as a real loss by experimental participants. Our experimental...

A major theoretical objection against employee ownership is that workers become inadequately diversified and exposed to excessive financial risk. Recent theory concludes that 10-15% of a worker's wealth portfolio can be prudently invested in employer stock provided the rest of the portfolio is...