The paper constructs a model of optimal portfolio allocation that focuses on the role of housing as collateral, allows for house price risk, and assumes that altering the quantity of housing incurs an adjustment cost. Because of the adjustment cost, the current house value becomes a state...

This paper studies the impact of the portfolio constraint imposed by the consumption demand for housing (the 'housing constraint') on the household's optimal holdings of financial assets. Since the ratio of housing to net worth declines as the household accumulates wealth, the housing constraint...

This paper studies the impact of the portfolio constraint imposed by the consumption demand for housing (the 'housing constraint') on the household's optimal holdings of financial assets. Since the ratio of housing to net worth declines as the household accumulates wealth, the housing constraint...

The paper proposes an instrumental variables version of the Huber estimator as an alternative to the IV-Krasker Welsch estimator. The IV-Huber estimator is analytically and computationally much simpler than IV-Krasker Welsch. In the context of an empirical study of the importance of borrowing...

We propose a long term portfolio management method which takes into account a liability. Our approach is based on the LQG (Linear, Quadratic cost, Gaussian) control problem framework and then the optimal portfolio strategy hedges the liability by directly tracking a benchmark process which...

This paper analyzes the changes in wealth inequality between college graduates and high-school graduates. The college/high-school net worth gap first narrows from 1989 to 1995 but then increases to the 1989 level thereafter. The wealth gap and income gap seem closely related, as some stylized...

This paper seeks to distinguish empirically between two views on the limitations of government borrowing. According to one view, nothing precludes the government from running a permanent budget deficit, paying interest due on the growing debt load simply by issuing new debt, An alternative...

The paper investigates the implications of the omitted information problem -- that is, the econometric problem which arises because an econometrician cannot explicitly include the complete set of variables potentially used by agents -- in the context of the "excess smoothness" phenomenon posed...

The paper proposes an instrumental variables version of the Huber estimator as an alternative to the IV-Krasker Welsch estimator. The IV-Huber estimator is analytically and computationally much simpler than IV-Krasker Welsch. In the context of an empirical study of the importance of borrowing...