Returns merely based on one purchasing price of an asset are uninformative for people regularly contributing to their old-age provision. Here, each purchase has an influence on the outcome. Still, they are commonly used in finance literature, giving an overly optimistic view of expected...

This monograph draws heavily on the vast body of knowledge that has been built by financial economists over the last 50 years. Its goal is to show how to solve real‐life portfolio allocation problems. We have found that using a broad range of models works best. Also, we prefer simple over...

We introduce a novel application of support vector machines (SVM), an important machine learning algorithm, to determine the beginning and end of recessions in real time. Nowcasting, forecasting a condition in the present time because the full information will not be available until later, is...

This paper analyzes the level and cyclicality of regulatory bank capital for asset portfolio securitizations in relation to the cyclicality of capital requirements for the underlying loan portfolio as under Basel II/III. We find that the cyclicality of capital requirements is higher for (i)...

If the firm chooses the stock of capital, labor, cash (distributions) so as to maximize its expected discounted present value, its investment policy should adjust endogenously to changes in investor preferences. It is hypothesized that quantitative easing (QE) affects asset prices through a...

We formalize the idea that the financial sector can be a source of non-fundamental risk. Households' desire to hedge against price volatility can generate price volatility in equilibrium, even absent fundamental risk. Fearing that asset prices may fall, risk-averse households demand safe assets...