Availability of (partial) insurance mechanisms is arguably important for the decision of (riskaverse) workers to start up a risky entrepreneurial venture. Using administrative data from Denmark, where unemployment insurance (UI) is available to both wage earners and self-employed on a voluntary...

We used administrative micro panel data from the Netherlands to study the wealth effect on the transitions of workers from wage-employment to self-employment. To isolate the causal effect of wealth, we used a pension system reform in 2006 as a quasi-natural experiment. With the onset of the...

Using a rich micro dataset drawn from administrative archives, we explore whether Social Security Wealth (SSW) is an important factor affecting the decision to become self-employed in Italy. We focus on the two main categories of self-employed professions covered by the Italian public pension...

This paper uses panel data from the pan-European SHARE survey to study labor market behavior of older male self-employed visa-vis wage employed workers. We find the self-employed to work longer hours, to be more flexible in their hours allocation, and to retire later in all countries. We relate...

This paper investigates whether mutual fund families acting as service providers in 401(k) plans display favoritism toward their own affiliated funds. Using a hand-collected dataset on the menu of investment options offered to plan participants, we show that fund deletions and additions are less...

We investigate inattention on the part of pension plan participants using a novel dataset covering savings in Sweden's Premium Pension System, data that permit direct comparison of the investment behaviors of pension and retail mutual fund investors. Unlike retail mutual fund investors, pension...

Many pension funds have a mismatch between assets and liabilities, taking more risks than securing liabilities implies. This puts fixed claims of retirees at risk. For the cases with and without macro-risk, this paper analyses the implications of this asset-liability mismatch for welfare,...

We document and study international differences in both ownership and holdings of stocks, private businesses, homes, and mortgages among households aged fifty or more in thirteen countries, using new and comparable survey data. We employ counter-factual techniques to decompose observed...

This paper examines the impact of participants' age distribution on the asset allocation of Dutch pension funds, using a unique data set of pension fund investment plans for 2007. Theory predicts a negative effect of age on (strategic) equity exposures. We observe that pension funds do indeed...

This paper provides the first joint analysis of household stockholding participation, location among stockholding modes, and participation spillovers. Our model matches observed participation, conditional and unconditional, and asset location patterns. We find that financial sophistication...