With more than $50 trillion in assets worldwide, investment funds run by the insurance industry and pension system are one of the most systemically important elements of the global financial system. In March 2014, following the global and euro area financial and economic crises, the European...

I study the history and performance of commercial real estate (CRE) in the pension fund portfolio, showing how many plan sponsors fundamentally changed their approach to CRE investment once underfunding gaps began to emerge in the early and middle 2000s. Several new empirical facts are...

For nearly half a century, the bundling of research services into commissions that paid for the execution of securities trades has been the focus of both policy discussion and academic debate. The practice whereby asset management firms make use of investor funds to cover the costs of research,...

Abstract in German: Auf Basis eines bundesweiten Samples von Honorarberatern und Kunden eruiert diese Studie handlungspolitische Empfehlungen, die zu einer erfolgreichen Etablierung der Honorarberatung in Deutschland beitragen sollen. Mittels einer explorativen Faktoranalyse (EFA) wird zwischen...

How do collateral requirements impact consumer borrowing behavior? Using administrative loan application and performance data from the U.S. Federal Disaster Loan Program, we exploit a loan amount threshold above which households must post their residence as collateral. One-third of all borrowers...

The GameStop trading frenzy in January 2021 was perhaps the highest profile example of the reemergence of capital market participation by retail investors, a marked shift from the growing domination of those markets by large institutional investors. Some commentators have greeted retail...

Since a mysterious creator under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym) launched first successful cryptocurrency in January 2009, he (or could be she) also opened the door for never-ending criticism, claims, arguments, plethora of articles, and media frenzy all contemplating what Bitcoin is....

We estimate the causal effect of emergency credit on households' finances after a negative shock. To do so, we link application data from the U.S. Federal Disaster Loan program, which provides loans to households that have uninsured damages from a federally-declared natural disaster, to a panel...

We estimate the causal effect of emergency credit on households' finances after a negative shock. To do so, we link application data from the U.S. Federal Disaster Loan program, which provides loans to households that have uninsured damages from a federally-declared natural disaster, to a panel...

This research studies the propensity of individuals to violate implications of expected utility maximization in allocating retirement savings within a compulsory defined contribution retirement plan. The paper develops the implications and describes the construction and administration of a...