Is the stock market boom a result of the baby boom? This paper develops an overlapping generations model in which a baby boom is modeled as a high realization of a random birth rate, and the price of capital is determined endogenously by a convex cost of adjustment. A baby boom increases...

As traders learn about the true distribution of some asset's dividends, a speculative premium occurs as each trader anticipates the possibility of re-selling the asset to another trader before complete learning has occurred. Small differences in prior beliefs lead to large speculative premiums...

Jim Poterba finds that consumers do not spend all of their assets during retirement, and he projects that the demand for assets will remain high when the baby boomers retire. Based on his forecast of continued high demand for capital, Poterba rejects the asset market meltdown hypothesis, which...

Soaring stock prices continue to pit those who claim that investors are paying too much against those who believe stocks are worth even more. Prices of stocks are determined by people's perceptions of worth, which are themselves based on expectations for the future Although we cannot be sure...