We examine households' financial fragility by looking at their capacity to come up with $2,000 in 30 days. Using data from the 2009 TNS Global Economic Crisis Study, we document that approximately one-quarter of U.S. respondents are certain they could not come up with that sum. If we include...

The need to manage risk is widely acknowledged throughout the corporate world, and a well-developed body of knowledge is available to guide efforts to do so. Implementation of principles into practice, however, is mixed, often due not just to a lack of the right skills, but also because of a...

Savings Bonds have always served multiple objectives: funding the U. S. government, democratizing national financing, and enabling families to save. Increasingly, this last goal has been ignored. A series of efficiency measures introduced in 2003 make these bonds less attractive and less...

In this paper, we review data on U.S. household savings, especially by less-affluent households, discuss theories of savings, and the impediments to savings. These impediments are a combination of factors that influence behavior by households and financial service firms. We discuss a number of...

In this clinical study, we examine the information flow for four stocks over seven months to trace the relationship between on-line discussion, news activity and stock price movements. On-line discussions are characterized by numerous unsubstantiated rumors, substantial on-point exchanges and...