This paper studies a household's optimal demand for a reverse mortgage. These contracts allow homeowners to tap their home equity to finance consumption needs. In stylized frameworks, we show that the decision to enter a reverse mortgage is mainly driven by the dierential between the aggregate...

We build a realistically calibrated life-cycle model of housing decisions under divorce risk. As observed in the data, our model predicts the recent increase in divorce rates leads to reduced homeownership rates. The event of a divorce negatively affects homeownership, and this effect is...

This paper studies a quantitative general equilibrium model of housing. The model has two key elements not previously considered in existing quantitative macro studies of housing finance: aggregate business cycle risk, and a realistic wealth distribution driven in the model by bequest...

Long-run risk models, a cornerstone in the macro-finance literature for their ability to capture key asset price phenomena, are known to entail implausibly high levels of timing and risk premia. Our paper resolves this puzzle by considering consumption of durable goods in addition to that of...

Changes in credit supply induce large and frequent variations in households' access to unsecured debt. They generate a novel financial precautionary motive, which compounds the classical motive associated with idiosyncratic income risk, as borrowers accumulate risk-free bonds to hedge against...

The goal of this paper is to show that household-level financial distress (FD) varies greatly, meaning there is unequal exposure to macroeconomic risk, and that FD can increase macroeconomic vulnerability. To do this, we first establish three facts: (i) regions in the U.S. vary significantly in...

We show that incorporating defined benefit pension funds in an asset pricing model with incomplete markets improves its ability to jointly match the historical equity premium and riskless rate, and has important implications for risk sharing. We emphasize the importance of the pension fund's...

We decompose the standard consumption beta into two components that measure consumption risk in high and low economic activity states. Recessionary consumption risk commands a positive and statistically significant compensation, while the market price of expansionary consumption risk is not...

In a world with complete markets and no transactions cost, the decision whether to rent or buy a home is separate from a household's professional income risk. If markets are incomplete and have frictions, however, profession- specific income risk, regional house price risk, and mobility needs...

This paper explores optimal consumption and portfolio decisions in the presence of risky house prices. We assume that changes in real interest rates and future rents directly impact house prices. A novel aspect of our model is that rent inflation rates and consumption inflation rates are...