We use data from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to explore how household asset portfolios in the United States evolved between 1989 and 2016. Throughout this period, two key assets - housing and financial market assets - drove the household balance sheet evolution;...

Using data on the portfolio holdings and income of millions of U.S. retirement investors, I find that positive and persistent shocks to income lead to a significant increase in the equity share of investor portfolios, while increases in financial wealth due to realized returns lead to a small...

I show that countercyclical earnings dynamics can have quantitatively important effects on saving and portfolio choice decisions over the life cycle. During expansions (recessions) when expected future earnings growth is high (low), households save less (more) and also invest a higher (lower)...

Earnings are riskier and more unequal for households born in the 1960s and 1980s than for those born in the 1940s. Despite the improvements in financial conditions, younger generations are less likely to be living in their own homes than older generations at the same age. By using a life-cycle...

Formative experiences are a natural candidate for explaining heterogeneity in portfolio choice. However, identifying their impact is challenging because experiences can correlate with unobservables and they may lead to changes in wealth and other determinants of portfolio choice. We overcome...

This chapter is concerned with the distribution of personal wealth, which usually refers to the material assets that can be sold in the marketpace, although on occasion pension rights are also included. We summarise the available evidence on wealth distribution for a number of countries. This...

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Survey, we reveal the non-linear dependence, between-squares correlation, between stock returns and earning risk exists. To understand how this non-linear dependence affects household life-cycle profile, we develop a life-cycle model that incorporates...

This paper quantifies mechanisms through which heterogeneity in household finances affects the transmission of monetary policy, considering housing tenure choices over the life cycle. Our analysis also identifies challenges for monetary policy related to housing busts. It focuses on the four...

Earnings are riskier and more unequal for households born in the 1960s and 1980s than for those born in the 1940s. Despite the improvements in financial conditions, younger generations are less likely to be living in their own homes than older generations at the same age. By using a life-cycle...

This paper studies the effect of deep recessions on intergenerational inequality by quantifying the welfare effects on households at different phases of the life cycle. Deep recessionary episodes are characterized by large declines in the prices of real and financial assets and in employment....