We solve for optimal consumption and portfolio choice in a life-cycle model with short-sales and borrowing constraints, undiversifiable labor income risk and a predictable, time-varying, equity premium and show that the investor pursues aggressive market timing strategies. Importantly, in the...

We study quantitatively how uncertainty in expected stock return predictability affects life-cycle portfolio choice and wealth accumulation in the presence of undiversifiable labor income risk. Households filter information about future expected returns from observed predictors and realized...

We propose target date funds modified to exploit stock return predictability driven by the variance risk premium. The portfolio rule of these tactical target date funds (TTDFs) is extremely simplified relative to the optimal one, making it easy to implement and communicate to investors. We show...

Using U.K. microeconomic data, we analyze the empirical determinants of voluntary annuity market demand. We find that annuity market participation increases with financial wealth, life expectancy and education and decreases with other pension income and a possible bequest motive for surviving...

We utilize an overlapping generations model with endogenous production and incomplete markets to quantify the distortionary costs associated with financing the increase in government expenditures directed to investments in the private sector in 2008 and 200 (a.k.a. ‘the bailout'), and its...

This is a case study of how a country nearly reached bankruptcy in March 2013, within five years from entering the Eurozone. The magnitude of the requested assistance is extremely large relative to GDP (100%) and studying this event provides useful lessons for avoiding such crises in the future....

We estimate a dynamic structural banking model to examine the interaction between risk-weighted capital adequacy and unweighted leverage requirements, their differential impact on bank lending, and equity buffer accumulation in excess of regulatory minima. Tighter risk-weighted capital...

From the late 1980s, many countries have reformed the institutional framework governing their central banks to increase operational independence. Collecting systematic biographical information, international press coverage, and independent expert opinions, we find that over the same period...