Households face earnings risk which is non-normal and varies by age and over the income distribution. We show that allowing for these rich features of earnings dynamics, in the context of a structurally estimated life-cycle portfolio choice model, helps to rationalize the limited participation...

There is little empirical evidence regarding downside risk in asset pricing, due in part to problems inherent in estimating downside risk. We argue that Berk and van Binsbergen (2016)'s approach to testing asset pricing models using the relation between investor flows and risk-adjusted fund...

From standard portfolio-choice theory it is well-understood that background risk, overwhelmingly due to wage risk, is one of the central determinants of individuals’ portfolio composition: higher background risk reduces risky investments. However, if background risk is negatively correlated...