The well-documented positive correlation between income risk and wealth was interpreted as evidence for high amounts of precautionary wealth in various studies. However, the large estimates emerged from pooling non-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs without controlling for heterogeneity. This paper...

Empirical studies have found that most households do not have recommended levels of emergency funds. A three-period model of optimal consumption is presented. The theoretical model suggests that many consumers without recommended levels of liquid assets may be acting rationally. The model is...

This paper models the effect of a HIV/AIDS epidemic on saving behavior and studies the welfare effects of testing for HIV. The model specifies a utility function that includes both regular consumption, and medical expenditures. Medical expenditures generate more utility if individuals are HIV...

There is a common perception that households are under-saving for retirement - indeed this has motivated many recent policy reforms in the UK. In this paper we use a structural model, specified to closely match the UK policy environment, to investigate this ‘fact' for the cohort born in the...

This article presents a model allowing to analyze in a convenient way, also in a graphical form, the influence of life-length risk transfer within a household on its ability to participate in pension-related capital market. This exploits the well-known property (at least since the research by...

This paper investigates whether false confidence, as characterized by a high level of personal mastery and a low level of intelligence (IQ), results in frequent investor trading and subsequent investor wealth erosion across time. Using the National Longitudinal Survey (NLSY79), change in wealth...

We use Iranian Household Expenditure and Income Survey to analyze the dynamics of consumption of the households. We observe evidence of excess sensitivity in a cohort pseudo panel of Iranian households. Excess sensitivity, however, is absent for government employees who have better access to...

1. This research examines the potential impact of the stock market crash of 2008-2009 on U.S. working households. The Great Recession caused financial problems for many households in terms of unemployment, business losses, and decreases in real estate values, but the broadly based decreases in...

Insurance has an intertemporal aspect as insurance premia have to be paid up front. We argue that the financing of insurance is key to understanding basic insurance patterns and insurers' balance sheets. Limited enforcement implies that insurance is globally monotone increasing in household net...