Over the last decades, income inequality has increased globally. How do social policies affect this increasing trend? How do international trade and technological progress affect inequality? What is the profile of income inequality in China? Based on quantitative analyses of determinants of...

This dissertation consists of four essays exploring how people form beliefs and make decisions in the financial markets and their implications for asset prices. Two common threads run through this dissertation: the persistence of key state variables and the less-than-fully-rational approach to...