In a model with housing collateral, the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth shifts the conditional distribution of consumption growth. In the model, a decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, reduces the amount of...

U.S. investors allocate 30-40% of their financial asset portfolio in the stock of the company they work for. Such a portfolio flies in the face of standard portfolio theory, which prescribes that an investor should hold less of a financial asset that is positively correlated with her...

Evidence of stock-return predictability by financial ratios is still controversial, as documented by inconsistent results for in-sample and out-of-sample regressions and by substantial parameter instability. This article shows that these seemingly incompatible results can be reconciled if the...

We construct a new data set of consumption and income data for the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, and we show that the extent of risk-sharing between regions varies substantially over time. In times when US housing collateral is scarce nationally, regional consumption is about twice as...

In a model with housing collateral, the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth shifts the conditional distribution of asset prices and consumption growth. A decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing and increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk. The conditional...

Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh is Professor of Finance at New York University's Stern School of Business. His research interests lie in housing, macroeconomics, and finance.

A contentious debate in finance revolves around whether investment managers add any value for their clients. Presumably, households delegate the investment decision because these managers are able to process information and use it efficiently to generate additional return. The raises the...

We develop a pair of risk measures for the universe of health and longevity products that includes life insurance, annuities, and supplementary health insurance. Health delta measures the differential payoff that a policy delivers in poor health, while mortality delta measures the differential...