Households face earnings risk which is non-normal and varies by age and over the income distribution. We show that allowing for these rich features of earnings dynamics, in the context of a structurally estimated life-cycle portfolio choice model, helps to rationalize the limited participation...

Empirical proxies of the aggregate consumption-wealth ratio in terms of a cointegrating relationship between consumption (c), asset wealth (a) and labour income (y), commonly referred to as cay-residuals, play an important role in recent empirical research in macroeconomics and finance. This...

We sort currencies by countries' consumption growth over the past four quarters. Currency portfolios of countries experiencing consumption booms have higher Sharpe ratios than those of countries going through a consumption-based recession. A carry strategy that goes short in countries that are...