Financial wealth inequality and long-term real interest rates track each other closely over the post-war period. Faced with lower returns on financial wealth, households with high levels of financial wealth must increase savings to afford the consumption that they planned before the decline in...

Financial wealth inequality and long-term real interest rates track each other closely over the post-war period. Faced with unanticipated lower real rates, households which rely more on financial wealth must see large capital gains to afford the consumption that they planned before the decline...

We examine the pricing of financial crash insurance during the 2007-2009 financial crisis in U.S. option markets, and we show that a large amount of aggregate tail risk is missing from the cost of financial sector crash insurance during the crisis. The difference in costs between...

We examine the pricing of financial crash insurance during the 2007-2009 financial crisis in U.S. option markets, and we show that a large amount of aggregate tail risk is missing from the cost of financial sector crash insurance during the crisis. The difference in costs between...

In a model with housing collateral, a decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. This collateral mechanism can quantitatively replicate the conditional and the...

Governments face a trade-off between insuring bondholders and insuring taxpayers against output shocks. If they insure bondholders by manufacturing risk-free zero-beta debt, then they can only provide limited insurance to taxpayers. Taxpayers will pay more taxes in bad times regardless of...