We develop a growth model with banks and markets to reconcile the observed decreasing trend in the relative liquidity of many financial systems around the world with the increasing household participation in direct market trades. At low levels of economic development, the presence of fixed entry...

This study develops estimates of expected loss severities on mortgage exposures using data from Florida during the Great Recession. This paper marks the first attempt at addressing sample selectivity in the context of loss models. We also construct measures of home equity that are more accurate...

This paper studies the imposition of position limits on commodity futures from the perspective of curbing excessive speculation and thus manipulation. We present a simple general equilibrium model in a static rational expectations framework and agent heterogeneity to illustrate that excessive...

The ability of consumers to make informed financial decisions improves their ability to develop sound personal finance. This paper uses a panel data set from Russia, an economy in which household debt has grown at an astounding rate, to examine the importance of financial literacy and its...

This paper investigates the optimal retirement of an individual in the presence of involuntary unemployment risks and borrowing constraints in a complete market with frictions. We use an intensity model and loading factors to illustrate the involuntary unemployment risks and frictions in...

A worker can reduce tax liability by contributing to a private pension plan when marginal tax rates are high and withdraw pension benefits when marginal tax rates are low. We quantify the tax benefit of income smoothing through the private retirement system and find that it is negligible. This...

This paper explores the implications of a novel class of preferences for the behavior of asset prices. Following a suggestion by Marshall (1920), we entertain the possibility that people derive utility not only from consumption, but also from the very act of saving. These “saving-based”...

We propose an optimization criterion that yields extraordinary consumption smoothing compared to the well known results of the life-cycle model. Under this criterion we solve the related consumption and investment optimization problem faced by individuals with preferences for intertemporal...

Is having a foreign background a relevant factor in choosing between payment instruments in consumer point-of-sale transactions after migration? We analyze this question using a unique diary survey in which both participants with a Dutch and a foreign background documented their daily purchases....

Sousa (2010a) shows that the residuals from the common trend among consumption, financial wealth, housing wealth and human capital, cday, can predict quarterly stock market returns better than cay from Lettau and Ludvigson (2001), which considers aggregate wealth instead. In this paper, we use a...