We exploit the unique design of a repeated survey experiment among students in four countries to explore the stability of risk preferences in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Relative to a baseline before the pandemic, we find that self-assessed willingness to take risks decreased while the...

We review the recent literature on the determinants and effects of housing market expectations. We begin by providing an overview of existing surveys that elicit housing market expectations, and discuss how those surveys may be expanded in the future. We then document a number of facts about...

Creating an own financial portfolio has never been easier than today. While the recent literature shows that people overvalue self-built consumer goods ("IKEA effect") we ask the following question: How do investors value and trade a self-built financial portfolio compared to one they did not...

Behavioral economics provides insights into how people process information and make decisions. It also helps to explain why and how people tend to make decisions that are not in their best interest, as opposed to what rational choice theory would suggest. This chapter provides an introduction to...

Recent changes in workplace and corporate board diversity policies and a series of court rulings have signalled a fundamental change in the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (henceforth LGBTQ) people in the corporate world. In this paper, we survey the burgeoning...

We survey retail investors at an online bank to study beliefs about the autocorrelation of aggregate stock returns, and how these beliefs shape investment decisions measured in administrative account data. Individuals' beliefs exhibit substantial heterogeneity and predict trading responses to...

In November 2021, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) issued a report analyzing the rapid expansion and growing risks of the stablecoin market. PWG’s report determined that stablecoins pose a wide range of potential hazards, including the risks of inflicting large losses...

Most financial advisors recommend storing three to six months of expenses in liquid assets in case of an emergency. Yet we estimate that more than half of U.S. families do not have at least three months of their non-discretionary expenses in liquid savings. We find that financial literacy is...

I study a real-options model where the investor computes the value of a project (VOP) from available data. In the process, she makes mistakes, as she suffers from over-confidence and inference biases. I study how the optimal investment rule and timing depend on investors' biases. I show that the...

We provide the first academic study on the performance of IRA pension plans from 2004 through 2018. At the aggregate level, the risk-adjusted performances of IRA plans are comparable to that of the aggregate equity market. However, high-income individuals substantially outperform low-income...