This paper assesses the probable impact on S&Ls' profitability and participation in mortgage markets of The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. It tracks inflation-induced secular declines in the value of S&L mortgage holdings between 1965 and 1979 and...

This paper has two goals. First, we discuss several emerging approaches to applied welfare analysis under non-standard ("behavioral") assumptions concerning consumer choice. This provides a foundation for Behavioral Public Economics. Second, we illustrate applications of these approaches by...

Although the mobilization of savings is an important function of banks and other financial institutions, there is remarkably little evidence that bears on how and how well the financial sector mobilized household savings in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This paper documents...

Germany is an interesting country to study saving among older households since nearly everyone - whether in the middle income bracket or richer - saves substantial amounts in old age. Only households in the lowest quarter of the income distribution spend more between the ages of 60 and 75 than...

How can retirement savings be increased? We explore a unique policy change in the context of the German pension system to study this question. As of 2004, the German pension authority started to send out annual letters providing detailed and comprehensible information about the pension system...

After a slow start and several design changes, Riester pension plans took off very quickly. While saving incentives were effective in reaching parents, they were somewhat less successful in attracting low-income earners, although Riester pensions exhibit a more equal pattern by income than...

We examine financial literacy in Germany using data from the SAVE survey. We find that knowledge of basic financial concepts is lacking among women, the less educated, and those living in East Germany. In particular, those with low education and low income in East Germany have little financial...

This paper examines the impact of the Asian crisis on bank stocks across four Western countries and six Asian countries. In the second half of 1997, Western banks experienced positive returns. In contrast East Asian bank indices incurred losses in excess of 60% in each of the crisis countries....

Universal banking is an alternative mechanism to a stock market for risk-sharing, for providing information for guiding investment, and for contesting corporate governance. In Germany, where the stock market has historically been small, banks hold equity stakes in firms and have proxy voting...

We use payroll data on 1.2 million bank employee years in the Austrian, German, and Swiss banking sector to identify incentive pay in the critical banking segments of treasury/capital market management and investment banking for 66 banks. We document an economically significant correlation of...