Over the last half-century, around the world, many nations have seen plummeting fertility rates and mounting life expectancies. These two factors are the engine behind unprecedented global aging. In this paper, we explore how the demographic transition may influence financial markets and, in...

This paper examines the problem of measuring the growth of a monetary aggregate in the presence of innovations in financial markets and changes in the relationship between individual assets and output. We propose constructing a monetary aggregate so that it is a good leading indicator of nominal...

This paper discusses recent developments in U.S. financial markets and provides an economic analysis of why various recent financial innovations have occurred. This will not only provide us with s better understanding of existing financial markets in the United States and why they have been...

The European Currency Unit (ECU) was officially introduced in March 1979 and has joined the ranks of innovative financial products that are rapidly appearing. The purpose of the paper is to explore the properties of the ECU and analyze those characteristics of the ECU, and products denominated...

This paper is organized as follows: The first part of the paper introduces the topic. In the next part, we explore the inadequacies of conventional and equity-based variable annuities in an inflationary environment by contrasting them with a hypothetical PPA. We then try to assess the...

We develop a dynamic equilibrium model of complex asset markets with endogenous entry and exit in which the investment technology of investors with more expertise is subject to less asset-specific risk. The joint equilibrium distribution of financial expertise and wealth then determines risk...

Personal bankruptcies in the United States have increased dramatically, rising from 1.4 per thousand working age population in 1970 to 8.5 in 2002. We use a heterogeneous agent life-cycle model with competitive financial intermediaries who can observe households' earnings, age and current asset...

This study offers a single, consistent model that tracks the velocity of broad money (M2) since 1929, including the Great Depression, the global financial crisis, and the Great Recession. The model emphasizes the roles of changes in uncertainty and risk premia, financial innovation, and major...

Financial innovations in recent decades have vastly expanded investors' portfolio choice. We theoretically analyze the effect of these developments on investors' savings and asset returns. In our model, investors with possibly heterogeneous beliefs choose their savings portfolios. Under mild...

This paper tests how migrants' willingness to remit changes when given the ability to direct remittances to educational purposes using different forms of commitment. Variants of a dictator game in a lab-in-the-field experiment with Filipino migrants in Rome are used to examine remitting behavior...