This paper investigates the determinants of financial risk-taking in a panel containing the asset holdings of Swedish twins. We measure the impact of a broad set of demographic, financial, and portfolio characteristics, and use yearly twin pair fixed effects to control for genes and shared...

This paper constructs an index of financial sophistication that, in comprehensive data on Swedish households, best explains a set of three investment mistakes: underdiversification, risky share inertia, and the tendency to sell winning stocks and hold losing stocks (the disposition effect). The...

This paper investigates the efficiency of household investment decisions in a unique dataset containing the disaggregated wealth and income of the entire population of Sweden. The analysis focuses on two main sources of inefficiency in the financial portfolio: underdiversification of risky...

This paper investigates the dynamics of individual portfolios in a unique dataset containing the disaggregated wealth of all households in Sweden. Between 1999 and 2002, we observe little aggregate rebalancing in the financial portfolio of participants. These patterns conceal strong...

One of the major social policy issues facing the U.S. in the first decade of the 21st century is the large number of Americans lacking health insurance. This article surveys the major economic issues around covering the uninsured. I review the facts on insurance coverage and the nature of the...

Religion plays an important role in the lives of many Americans, but there is relatively little study by economists of the implications of religiosity for economic outcomes. This likely reflects the enormous difficulty inherent in separating the causal effects of religiosity from other factors...

We study the impacts of a policy designed to reward mothers who stay at home rather than join the labor force when their children are under age three. We use regional and over time variation to show that the Finnish Home Care Allowance (HCA) decreases maternal employment in both the short and...

The population of the United States, as with the rest of the world, is aging rapidly, with the most rapid growth occurring among the age 85 and older population, those who rely most on long-term care. In this chapter, we review the delivery and financing of long-term care in the U.S. We show...

The developed world is in the midst of an enormous demographic transition, with life expectancy increasing and fertility falling, leading to a rapid aging of the population. This trend has critical implications for long-term care around the world. This paper serves as the introduction to a...