This paper uses international panel data on 55 countries from 1995 to 2008, merging indicators of financial literacy with a large set of macroeconomic and institutional variables. Results show that there is substantial heterogeneity of financial and economic competence across countries, and that...

We use two administrative data sets, from a large internet broker and from a major commercial bank, together with regional data to ask three questions: (i) whether financial advisors tend to be matched with poorer, uninformed investors or with richer, experienced but presumably busy investors;...

This paper examines the influence of both trust and sociability on stock market participation and their implications for international differences in stockholding. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe supplemented with information on regional trust from the World...

This paper investigates how risk attitudes change over the life course. We study the age trajectory of risk attitudes all the way from early adulthood until old age, in large representative panel data sets from the Netherlands and Germany. Age patterns are generally difficult to identify...

We develop and study a neoclassical growth model with a realistic demographic structure. Our model complements recent developments in the overlapping generations (OLG) literature by highlighting the natural link that exists between different classes of macrodynamic models. Within the model we...

This paper reviews the literature on the optimal design and regulation of funded pension schemes. We first characterize optimal saving and investment over an individual’s life cycle. Within a stylized modeling framework, we explore optimal individual saving and investing behavior....

Studies have found evidence that seemingly irrelevant details of an income component such as its label have an effect on how it is used. Using a data set with more than one million employee-month observations, we investigate the role of functional form assumptions and time aggregation in the...

In this paper we conduct a quantitative analysis of a number of stylized educational loan systems. We develop a stochastic general equilibrium model of a closed economy with a competitive firm sector and a government that levies taxes and administers educational loans. Individuals are...

The so-called retirement-savings puzzle is a phenomenon by which, contrary to what the basic life-cycle model predicts, households do not run down their wealth significantly during retirement. In this survey paper we briefly review the literature that attempts to solve the retirement-savings...

The theory of home production suggests substitutability between market consumption and home production. The current paper estimates the intratemporal elasticity between home production and market consumption from within-person variation. Shocks in houseprices induced by the Great Recession are...