Using individual patient records for every hospital in California from 1983-2011, we find a strong inverse link between daily stock returns and hospital admissions, particularly for psychological conditions such as anxiety, panic disorder, or major depression. The effect is nearly instantaneous...

We examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI), health habits, and financial risk and time preferences. Using a sample of 128 undergraduate business students, we find that participants with higher BMI exhibit greater utility function curvature, greater loss aversion, and greater...

This study examines the effects of local stock returns on antidepressant usage using the Truven Health MarketScan® individual prescription drug data. There are three main findings. First, a one standard deviation decrease in local stock return increases local investor's antidepressant usage by...

We use two quasi-natural experiments, the rapid expansion of many markets after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Anti-Alcohol Campaign in 1986, and a migrants research design to identify highly persistent habits in food and alcohol consumption. Large shocks to product availability and...

We present 12 facts about the mortgage crisis. We argue that the facts refute the popular story that the crisis resulted from finance industry insiders deceiving uninformed mortgage borrowers and investors. Instead, we argue that borrowers and investors made decisions that were rational and...

This paper proposes to investigate the impact of financialization on energy markets (oil, gas, coal and electricity European forward prices) during both normal times and extreme fluctuation periods through an original behavioral and emotional approach. To this aim, we propose a new theoretical...

Can a wealth shift to emerging countries explain instability in developed countries? Investors exposed to political risk seek safety in countries with better property right protection. This induces private intermediaries to offer safety via inexpensive demandable debt, and increase lending into...

We use a classic Merton credit risk framework to argue that Islamic Banking Institutions (IBIs) face less incentive to take on risks than Conventional Banking Institutions (CBI). IBIs have less incentive for risk shifting both in and outside of distress situations. We test and confirm this...

This paper aims to shed light on the emergence of systemic risk in credit systems. By developing an interbank market with heterogeneous financial institutions granting loans on different network structures, we investigate what market architecture is more resilient to liquidity shocks and how the...

We study general equilibrium asset prices in a multi-period endowment economy when agents' risk aversion is allowed to depend on the maturity of the risk. We find horizon-dependent riskaversion preferences generate a decreasing term structure of risk premia if and only if volatility is...