Within the context of expected utility and in a discrete loss setting, we provide a complete account of the demand for insurance by strictly-risk averse agents and risk-neutral firms when they enjoy limited liability. When exposed to a bankrupting, binary loss and under actuarially fair prices,...

A random variable dominates another random variable with respect to the covariance order if the covariance of any two monotone increasing functions of this variable is smaller. We characterize completely the covariance order, give strong sufficient conditions for it, present a number of examples...

We present a self-consistent model for explosive financial bubbles, which combines a mean-reverting volatility process and a stochastic conditional return which reflects nonlinear positive feedbacks and continuous updates of the investors' beliefs and sentiments. The conditional expected returns...

Using data for the 1978-2008 period, this study presents evidence for cointegration between securitized (NAREIT) and direct (NCREIF) total return indices. Cointegration between the indices indicates that REITs and direct real estate are substitutable in the portfolio of a long-horizon...

This chapter surveys theoretical research on the long-term performance of fixed-mix investment strategies. These self-financing strategies rebalance the portfolio over time so as to keep constant the proportions of wealth invested in various assets. The main result is that wealth can be grown...

Private equity has traditionally been thought to provide diversi cation bene ts. However, these benefi ts may be lower than anticipated. We find that private equity suffers from signifi cant exposure to the same liquidity risk factor as public equity and other alternative asset classes. The...

This paper presents an equilibrium model in a pure exchange economy when investors have three possible sources of heterogeneity. Investors may differ in their beliefs, in their level of risk aversion and in their time preference rate. We study the impact of investors heterogeneity on the...

We study survival, price impact and portfolio impact in heterogeneous economies. We show that, under the equilibrium risk-neutral measure, long-run price impact is in fact equivalent to survival, whereas longrun portfolio impact is equivalent to survival under an agent-specific, wealth-forward...

We implement a long-horizon static and dynamic portfolio allocation involving a risk-free and a risky asset. This model is calibrated at a quarterly frequency for ten European countries. We also use maximum-likelihood estimates and Bayesian estimates to account for parameter uncertainty. We find...