There are pronounced racial, ethnic, and gender gaps in income in the U.S. We investigate whether these correspond with differences in competitiveness, risk tolerance, and confidence relative to performance in a large, stratified sample of the U.S. prime-age population. We find substantial...

Equity exchanges competing for orders are using new pricing strategies. Typically, liquidity suppliers are compensated and liquidity demanders are charged. This pricing structure is controversial because of its potential effects on investor order choice, market quality, trader welfare, and...

Using a semi-supervised topic model on 7,000,000 New York Times articles spanning 160 years, we test whether topics of media discourse predict future stock and bond market returns to test rational and behavioral hypotheses about market valuation of disaster risk. Focusing on media discourse...

Over the past two decades, respondents to the Shiller Investor Confidence Surveys assess the probability of a catastrophic stock market crash to be much higher that the historical frequency of such events. We decompose these crash probabilities into fundamental and subjective components and use...

Using AMEX, NASDAQ and NYSE stock market data for the period 1985–2006, this paper sheds further light into the value premium and the discussion of whether the value premium is driven by risk or behavioral factors. The paper utilizes a more comprehensive set of data and tests than previous...

In addition to their direct effects, episodes of financial instability may decrease investor confidence. Measuring the impact of a crisis on investor confidence is complicated by the fact that it is difficult to disentangle the effect of investor confidence from coincident direct effects of the...

This paper uses proprietary data comprising of 4,155 participants who attended financial education seminars conducted by a major U.S. consumer credit counseling agency in 2007. In this study, knowledge gained from attending the seminars is estimated using a multivariate regression model. Results...

This paper bridges two distinct areas of inquiry: the economic theory of the family and behavioral research on time-inconsistent preferences. In our model, hyperbolic discounting couples engage in household production activities, thereby accumulating family-specific capital over time. At any...