We estimate the portfolio effect of changes in social security wealth exploiting a decade of Italian pension reforms as a source of exogenous variation. The Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth records detailed portfolio data and elicits expectations of retirement outcomes, thus...

This paper proposes a structural approach to long-horizon asset allocation. In particular, the investor draws inferences about asset returns from a vector autoregression (VAR) with economic restrictions on the intercept, slope, and covariance matrix implied by the long-run risk model of Bansal...

We develop an asset pricing model with external habit formation. The model predicts that the effect of consumption shocks on the equity premium depends on the business cycle. We test this empirical implication using a VAR model of the U.S. postwar economy whose parameters are estimated...

We analyze optimal monetary policy and its implications for asset prices, when aggregate demand has inertia and responds to asset prices with a lag. If there is a negative output gap, the central bank optimally overshoots aggregate asset prices (asset prices are initially pushed above their...

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)...

We develop a model of asset pricing assuming that investor's behavior is habit forming. The model predicts that the effect of consumption growth shocks on the risk premium depends on the business cycle phase of the economy. This empirical implication is tested with a Markov-switching VAR model...

We present evidence that the mix of transitory and permanent shocks to consumption is changing over time. We study implications of this finding for asset prices. The uncovered dynamics of consumption implies modestly upward sloping real bond and equity curves, upward sloping nominal yield curve,...

This paper shows how risk may aggravate fluctuations in economies with imperfect insurance and multiple assets. A two period job matching model is studied, in which risk averse agents act both as workers and as entrepreneurs. They choose between two types of investment: one type is riskless,...

Autonomous demand shock affects consumption spending. Variation in consumption spending contributes to the volatility in aggregate demand. As the investor is risk averse, volatility of aggregate demand reduces investment. Government injects monetary noise to reduce the volatility in aggregate...

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...