We document a robust positive relationship between the belief dispersion about macroeconomic conditions among household investors and the stock market trading volume, using more than 30 years of household survey data and a novel approach to measuring belief dispersions. Notably, such a...

We study the effects of dispersion of investors' beliefs and dispersion of belief changes on stock trading volume. Unlike most of the existing work on the subject, our paper focuses on how investors' disagreements on macroeconomic variables affect marketwide trading volume. These macro variables...

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document that, controlling for observable characteristics, household investors' likelihood of entering the stock market within the next five years is about 30 percent higher if their parents or children had entered the stock market during the previous...

Liquidity constraints have been proposed as an important explanation for deviations from the rational expectations/permanent income hypothesis. This paper introduces to the liquidity constraint literature the ratio of a household's debt payments to its disposable personal income (DSR). We find...

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document that, controlling for observable characteristics, household investors' likelihood of entering stock markets within the ensuing five years is 30 percent higher if their parents or children had entered stock markets within the previous five...

We study variations in housework time and leisure consumption when workers are subject to labor market work hours constraints that prevent them from working the optimal number of hours. Using data from two large nationwide longitudinal surveys, we first document that such constraints are...

Despite news reports suggesting a rise in 401(k) borrowing in recent years, we find that the share of eligible households with 401(k) loans in the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances was about 15 percent, roughly what it has been since 1995. We find that the best predictors of 401(k) borrowing...

A large literature has examined factors leading to filing for personal bankruptcy, but little is known about household borrowing after bankruptcy. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we find that relative to comparable nonfilers, bankruptcy filers generally have more limited access...

We show that there exists significant heterogeneity across US households in how uncertain they are in their expectations regarding personal and macroeconomic outcomes, and that uncertainty in expectations predicts households' choices. Individuals with lower income or education, more precarious...