The life-cycle hypothesis predicts that the cross-sectional variance of the marginal utility of consumption is equal to its own lag plus a constant and a random component. Using fairly general preference specifications and some assumptions about the nature of the random component, we provide an...

We provide a detailed account of the portfolio of Italian households and its evolution, using repeated cross-sectional and panel data drawn from the 1989-95 Bank of Italy Survey of Household Income and Wealth. We offer an in-depth description of the lifetime pattern of asset holdings and their...

We investigate whether information sharing among banks has affected credit market performance in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, using a large sample of firm-level data. Our estimates show that information sharing is associatedwith improved availability...

We review different empirical approaches that researchers have taken to estimate how consumption responds to income changes. We critically evaluate the empirical evidence on the sensitivity of consumption to predicted income changes, distinguishing between the traditional excess sensitivity...

Many studies show that most people are not financially literate and are unfamiliar with even the most basic economic concepts. However, the evidence on the determinants of economic literacy is scant. This paper uses international panel data on 55 countries, merging indicators of economic...

The single most important policy-induced innovation in the international financial system since the collapse of the Bretton-Woods regime is the institution of the European Monetary Union. This paper provides an account of how the process of financial integration has promoted financial...

In the context of an overlapping generations model, we show that liquidity constraints on households: (i) raise the saving rate; (ii) strengthen the effect of growth on saving; and (iii) increase the growth rate if productivity growth is endogenous. These propositions are supported by...

We estimate the effect of pension reforms on households’ expectations of retirement outcomes and private wealth accumulation decisions exploiting a decade of Italian pension reforms as a source of exogenous variation in expected pension wealth. Two parameters are crucial to estimate pension...

The Paper reviews the literature on these tax incentives, with special focus on long-term saving, housing, and household liabilities. The Paper addresses several areas of policy intervention: (1) the interest rate effect on personal saving; (2) the effect of tax incentives on long-term mandatory...