We show that a life-cycle model with realistically calibrated uninsurable labor income risk and moderate risk aversion can simultaneously match stock market participation rates and asset allocation decisions conditional on participation. The key ingredients of the model are Epstein-Zin...

Many countries face increasing fiscal problems financing pensions in the face of population aging. There is controversy about the underlying economic theory, about the extent of the problem, and about the best mix of policies to protect old-age security. This paper establishes the areas of...

Over the last 25 years, labor income inequality has increased significantly; one may expect this would lead to significant increases in wealth and consumption inequality. However the increase in wealth inequality has been relatively moderate and consumption inequality has barely increased at...

Evidence that asset returns are more highly correlated during volatile markets and during market downturns (see Longin and Solnik, 2001, and Ang and Chen, 2002) has lead some researchers to propose alternative models of dependence. In this paper we develop two simple goodness-of-fit tests for...

We argue on theoretical grounds that obligatory compliance with stricter financial reporting rules (e.g. the US Sabanes-Oxley Act) may entail important unintended consequences. Paradoxically, the amount of misreporting may increase because corporate boards spend more valuable resources...

This paper reassesses the UK results of significant abnormal returns from directors trading for a new sample of directors trades 1984-1988, and finds that abnormal returns tend to be concentrated in smaller firms. When an appropriate benchmark portfolio is used, it is found that the significance...

This paper proposes a measure of financial fragility that is based on economic welfare in a general model calibrated against UK data. The model comprises a household sector, three active hetrogeneous banks, a central bank/regulator, incomplete markets and endogenous default. We address the...

This paper examines the determinants of inside spreads and their behaviour around corporate earning announcement dates, for a sample of UK firms over the period 1986-94. The paper finds that closing daily inside spreads are affected by order processing costs (proxied by trading volumes),...

This paper applies an extended and generalised version of the recursive modelling strategy developed in Persaran and Timmermann (1995) to the UK stock market. The focus of the analysis is to simulate investors search in in real time for a model that can forecast stock returns. It demonstrates...

In this papaer we, first, by explicitly taking account of the private sectors influence and pressure on the monetary authorities, provide a more plausible representation of the motivations of the two main players. We then incorporate persistence into the model and show that the optimal policy of...