Pension funds are an important part of private savings flows, the main supplier of capital to industry and play a large and growing role in providing retirement incomes in countries with mature funded pension systems. Reforms which increase the emphasis on privately managed, funded pensions must...

Each economic actor is characterized by his own evaluations, traits, and strategies. Although heterogeneity of economic actors is widely acknowledged, little is known about the factors causing it. In this paper, we will examine the behavioral bias known as myopic loss aversion, and the...

We compare the influence of bankruptcy law on the risk of default and the rate of liquidation by banks. We show that it depends on whether it is pro-creditors or pro-debtors oriented, and on the intensity of competition between banks. Then , we analyse the various tools at the disposal of public...

Pension fund charges reduce the rate of return on pension accounts in some countries by up to by two percentage points. Do charges of this scale undermine the case for funded pension provision? How can governments hold back costs and charges? This paper looks at evidence from thirteen countries,...

A critical question in the transition to a funded, private pension system is whether the new private element is presented as a mandate or choice to current and future workers. This paper sets out the spectrum of available options and looks at policy in 13 reforming countries. It concludes that...

High charges for personal pensions were one factor in the personal pensions mis-selling debacle in the United Kingdom. They continued to arouse concern among politicians and commentators. The Labour government, with its new flagship ‘stakeholder’ pension, chose to regulate both the structure...

This paper examines a model of economic status satisfaction (money satisfaction) that controls attitudes toward money, income level and gender. Money attitudes were measured with SPP scale (Gąsiorowska, 2003), fully developed in Polish environment, and better adjusted to Polish conditions than...

Investment behavior is traditionally investigated with the assumption that risky investment is on average advantageous. However, this may not always be the case. In this paper, we experimentally studied investment choices made by students and financial professionals under favorable and...

The attempts to explain the high and sticky credit card rates have given rise to a vast literature on credit card markets. This paper endeavors to explain the rates in the Turkish market using measures of non-price competition. In this market, issuers compete monopolistically by differentiating...

We have assembled a unique loan-level performance dataset for mortgages originated in the UK to study the differences in default likelihood between loans of varying borrower and loan characteristics. We can broadly confirm the relevance of most commonly known riskfactors and find that most...