"Unfunded pay-as-you-go state pension schemes are financially unsustainable in Europe as elsewhere. Proponents of reform argue that, by switching to a fully funded scheme that takes advantage of the high return on assets such as equities, the solvency of the state scheme could be restored at...

This paper analyzes the variation in expected monthly stock returns for a large cross-section of U.K. companies. Using company attributes as a sorting key, the authors we form portfolios and study their returns relative to the return on the market index. They find that book to market value, and...

This paper uses data on the stock market valuations of a large sample of UK companies to assess if that market displays short-termism. Tests are undertaken of whether discount rates, implicit in market valuations, applied to cash flows which accrue in the longer term are too high, both...

If low and stable inflation is maintained then the economic environment in the United Kingdom will be very different from any sustained period in the post-war era. This may have significant implications for financial markets: asset prices, the demand and supply for various types of financial...

The main aim of this paper is to to analyse the impact of shifting demographics and changes in pension arrangements in a model which includes housing both as an investment asset and a consumption good. We consider the impact on welfare, and on macroeconomic aggregates, of some specific pension...

In this paper we assess the recent history of house prices and of mortgage lending across Europe. We develop a simple economic framework to estimate the likely contributions of fundamental factors, such as changes in real incomes and population growth, to house price appreciation. We also try to...