This paper shows that the combination of habit formation - present consumption creating additional consumption needs in the future - and myopia may explain why some retirees are forced to unretire, i.e., unexpectedly return to work. It also shows that when myopia about habit formation leads to...

We estimate the degree of 'stickiness' in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness...

Diese Dissertation beinhaltet drei eigenständige Aufsätze, die die Interaktionen von Bewertungsmodellen für Wertpapiere, Finanzmärkten und der Volkswirtschaft untersuchen. Alle drei Papiere tragen zu einem besseren Verständnis von Verknüpfungen zwischen Finanzmärkten und Realwirtschaft....

Tackling environmental pollution requires a permanent change in regular, repeated behavior of households. Bringing about change in such behavior may require interventions that are not limited to a single point in time, yet little evidence exists on how frequently we need to target households to...

We use the consumption-based asset pricing model with habit formation to study the predictability and cross-section of returns from the international equity markets. We find that the predictability of returns from many developed countries' equity markets is explained in part by changing prices...

Duesenberry introduced the notion of a ratchet investor who does not tolerate any decline in her consumption rate. We connect the demand behavior of such an agent to the behavior of standard time-additive agents. A ratchet investor demands the running maximum of the optimal plan a conventional...

Research macroeconomists have witnessed remarkable methodological developments in mathematical, statistical, and computational tools during the last two decades. The three essays in this dissertation took advantage of these advances to analyze important macroeconomic issues.The first essay, “...

We estimate the importance of preference interdependence from consumption choices. Our strategy follows the literature that tests the constraints imposed by optimality in the evolution of individual consumption. We derive a Euler equation from a preference specifi cation that allows for...

A common finding in the international-economics literature is that the elasticity of substitution between domestically produced and imported goods is smaller in the short than in the long run. Despite this, most of today's commonly used macroeconomic models assume this elasticity to be constant....

Sleep deprivation is a risky behavior prevalent in modern societies, leading to negative health and economic consequences. However, we know little about why people decide to sleep less than the recommended number of hours. This study investigates the mechanisms affecting sleep choice and...