This paper uses stochastic simulations on calibrated models to assess the steady state impact of different pension arrangements in an environment where financial markets are less than perfect. Surprisingly little is known about the optimal split between funded and unfunded systems when there are...

Little in the scholarly economics literature is directed specifically to stable value funds, although they occupy a leading place among retirement investment vehicles. They are offered in almost half of all defined contribution plans in the USA, with more than $800 billion dollars worth of...

Insurance companies often follow highly correlated investment strategies. As major investors in corporate bonds, their investment commonalities subject investors to fire-sale risk when regulatory restrictions prompt widespread divestment of a bond following a rating downgrade. Reflective of...

We conduct a comprehensive asset pricing analysis for the U.S. property/liability insurance industry using monthly data from 1988 to 2015. We find that state-of-the-art models such as the Fama and French (2015) five-factor model cannot explain the returns of property/liability insurance stocks...

This paper uses stochastic simulations on calibrated models to assess the optimal degree of reliance on fun ded pensions and on a particular type of unfunded (PAYG) pension. Surprisingly little is known about the optimal split between funded and unfunded systems when there are sources of...

In this paper, I extend the results of Moskowitz and Vissing-Jørgensen (2002) on the returns to entrepreneurial investments in the United States. First, following the authors' methodology I replicate the original findings from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) for the period 1989 - 1998 and...

This paper examines the effect of accounting conservatism on firm-level investment during the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Using a differences-in-differences design, we find that firms with less conservative financial reporting experienced a sharper decline in investment activity following...

I show that an asset pricing model for the equity claims of a value-maximizing firm can be constructed from its optimal financial contracting behavior. I study a dynamic contracting model in which firms trade off the costs and benefits of a given promise to pay external lenders in a specific...

Most firms face some form of competition in product markets. The degree of competition a firm faces feeds back into its cash flows and affects the values of the securities it issues. Through its effects on stock prices, product market competition affects the prices of options on equity and...

This paper contains the statistics of a survey about the Risk-Free Rate (RF) and the Market Risk Premium (MRP) used in 2020 for 81 countries. We got answers for 87 countries, but we only report the results for 81 countries with more than 6 answers.Many respondents use for European countries a RF...