This paper addresses the issue of portfolio risk exposure as a function of age, and it focuses the debate by presenting detailed cross-sectional evidence about individual portfolios. It provides new empirical results that characterized the relationship between age and the risk exposure of...

A comparison of U.S. saving rates with those of 15 OECD countries, finding that saving is generally higher in countries that do not subsidize borrowing through interest deductibility.

This paper evaluates Hayashi's conjecture that Japan's postwar saving experience can be accounted for by the neoclassical model of economic growth as that country's efforts to reconstruct its capital stock that was severely damaged in World War II. I call this the reconstruction hypothesis. I...

Direct investment plans (commonly known as DRIPs) let investors bypass traditional investment channels and avoid problems such as high transactions costs and the relatively large dollar amounts necessary to purchase certain assets. While no one expects these plans to answer all of the modern...

The U.S. Social Security Trust Fund faces depletion over the coming decades, and there is a near consensus that social security reform is necessary. Under one suggestion for partial privatization, current surpluses would fund private, individual retirement accounts, and the private savings would...

In short, Cooper tells us not to worry about our current account or its underlying causes. I have a much darker and, I believe, more accurate view of our current account deficit. While I agree with much of what Cooper says, I disagree most strongly with his central thesis that the current...