The dynamic development of the mortgage market, especially in the period before the current financial crisis, revealed that within the EU there are local mortgage credit markets and that it is necessary to harmonize the rules of the system and consumer protection within the Community. The...

Financial disclosure documents provide investors with product details to facilitate informed investment decisions. We investigate whether the appearance - the visual frame - of disclosure documents impacts risk and return expectations and investment behavior. In our experiment, subjects decide...

We study the bancarization of marginal borrowers using credit cards and document that this process is difficult: default risk is substantial, returns heterogeneous, and account closings common. We also take advantage of a randomized control trial that varied interest rates and minimum payments...

This paper assesses the case for promoting financial education in Asia. It argues that the benefits of investing in financial education can be substantial. Data are limited, but indicate low financial literacy scores for selected Asian countries. As economies develop, access to financial...

Die Ergänzung der gesetzlichen umlagefinanzierten Altersvorsorge durch eine öffentlich geförderte kapitalgedeckte private Altersvorsorge in Deutschland ist sinnvoll. Allerdings krankt das gegenwärtige System an zentralen Punkten: Die mangelhafte Regulierung des provisionsorientierten...

Studien zu privaten Altersvorsorgeprodukten beschäftigen sich zunehmend mit der Informiertheit der Konsumentinnen/Konsumenten. Mithilfe einer repräsentativen Panelumfrage betrachtet dieser Beitrag darüber hinausgehende Erklärungsansätze für nachfrageseitige Hemmnisse, die eine...

The paper reports the results of an experiment where asymmetric sellers of a product can obfuscate the market. We show that policy measures may have unintended effects of increasing obfuscation incentives. We find that policies that limit the effectiveness of obfuscation and policies that...

This paper contributes the on-going debate on income inequality in advanced economies with a proposal aimed at reducing costly investment mistakes that are prevalent among middle-class households. The paper starts by describing how households should invest, compares it with what we know about...

The behavioral relevance of non-binding defaults is well established. While most research has focused on decision makers’ responses to a given default, we argue that this individual decision making perspective is incomplete. Instead, a comprehensive understanding of default effects requires to...

In the context of emission trading it seems to be taken as given that people's preferences can be ignored with respect to the whole process of fixing emission targets and allocating emission permits to polluters. With this paper we want to reopen the debate on how citizens can be involved in...