This paper studies a household's optimal demand for a reverse mortgage. These contracts allow homeowners to tap their home equity to finance consumption needs. In stylized frameworks, we show that the decision to enter a reverse mortgage is mainly driven by the dierential between the aggregate...

This paper analyzes the portfolio decision of an investor facing the threat of illiquidity. In a continuous-time setting, the efficiency loss due to illiquidity is addressed and quantified. We show that the efficiency loss for a logarithmic investor with 30 years until the investment horizon is...

In this paper we present some counter-examples to show that an uncritical application of the usual methods of continuous-time portfolio optimization can be misleading in the case of a stochastic opportunity set. Cases covered are problems with stochastic interest rates, stochastic volatility,...

COVID-19 has taught us that a pandemic can significantly increase biometric risk and at the same time trigger crashes of the stock market. Taking these potential co-movements of financial and non-financial risks into account, we study the portfolio problem of an agent who is aware that a future...

In this paper we provide new evidence that corporate financing decisions are associated with managerial incentives to report high equity earnings. Managers rely most heavily on debt to finance their asset growth when their future earnings prospects are poor, when they are under pressure due to...

We offer evidence of a new stylized feature of corporate financing decisions: the tendency of managers to rely more on debt financing when earnings prospects are poor. We term this 'leaning against the wind' and consider three possible explanations: market timing, precautionary financing, and...

In this paper we provide new evidence that corporate financing decisions are associated with managerial incentives to report high equity earnings. Managers rely most heavily on debt to finance their asset growth when their future earnings prospects are poor, when they are under pressure due to...

This paper studies the relationship between the cross section of stock returns and firm specific jump risk. Using option data, we estimate various option-based time-series. Sorting firms according to their firm specific jump risk, we find that this risk is priced for small stocks. Furthermore,...

In this paper we provide new evidence that corporate financing decisions are associated with managerial incentives to report high equity earnings. Managers rely most heavily on debt to finance their asset growth when their future earnings prospects are poor, when they are under pressure due to...

We offer evidence of a new stylized feature of corporate financing decisions: the tendency of managers to rely more on debt financing when earnings prospects are poor. We term this 'leaning against the wind' and consider three possible explanations: market timing, precautionary financing, and...