Economic theory predicts that home ownership should have a negative effect on risk-taking in financial portfolios. However, empirical work has not found a strong relationship between housing and portfolios. We identify two reasons for the divergence between the theory and data. First, it is...

This paper studies portfolio choice and asset prices in a model with two consumption goods, one of which involves a commitment in that its consumption can only be adjusted at a cost. Commitments effectively make investors more risk averse: they invest less in risky assets and smooth total...

Many households devote a large fraction of their budgets to quot;consumption commitmentsquot; -- goods that involve transaction costs and are infrequently adjusted. This paper characterizes risk preferences in an expected utility model with commitments. We show that commitments affect risk...

We analyze the implications of household-level adjustment costs for the dynamics of aggregate consumption. We show that an economy in which agents have ldquo;consumption commitmentsrdquo; is approximately equivalent to a habit formation model in which the habit stock is a weighted average of...

Economic theory predicts that home ownership should have a negative effect on risk-taking in financial portfolios. However, empirical work has not found a strong relationship between housing and portfolios. We identify two reasons for the divergence between the theory and data. First, it is...