A number of studies have pointed to various mistakes that consumers might make in their consumption-saving and financial decisions. We utilize a unique market experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank to assess how systematic and costly such mistakes are in practice. The bank offered consumers a...

A number of studies have pointed to various mistakes that consumers might make in their consumption-saving and financial decisions. We utilize a unique market experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank to assess how systematic and costly such mistakes are in practice. The bank offered consumers a...

A number of studies have pointed to various mistakes that consumers might make in their consumption-saving and financial decisions. We utilize a unique market experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank to assess how systematic and costly such mistakes are in practice. The bank offered consumers a...

We analyze an experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank that offered consumers a choice between two credit card contracts, one with an annual fee but a lower interest rate and one with no annual fee but a higher interest rate. We find that on average consumers chose the credit contract that...

A number of studies have pointed to various mistakes that consumers might make in their consumption-saving and financial decisions. We utilize a unique market experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank to assess how systematic and costly such mistakes are in practice. The bank offered consumers a...

A number of studies have pointed to various mistakes that consumers might make in their consumption-saving and financial decisions. We utilize a unique market experiment conducted by a large U.S. bank to assess how systematic and costly such mistakes are in practice. The bank offered consumers a...

For the greater part of 2010, short-term and long-term interest rates in Belgium were at exceptionally low levels. Nominal interest rates reached historic lows ; in real terms, only the low point of 1974 remained unequalled. The yield curve was in turn relatively steep. In the first place, the...

Barro et al. (2022) investigate the quantity of safe assets held in the cross-section of developed countries and find that the average safe-asset ratio (ratio of safe assets to total assets) was 37% in 2015 and has remained relatively stable over time. They also document a crowding-out...

We argue that there is a connection between the interbank market for liquidity and the broader financial markets, which has its basis in demand for liquidity by banks. Tightness in the interbank market for liquidity leads banks to engage in what we term “liquidity pull-back,” which involves...

Since the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system, gold has delivered average return comparable to the average return delivered by the aggregate US stock market. This suggest that none of the growth and technological improvement gains accrued to the financiers. In the context of modern asset...