Oil prices increased dramatically during 2004–2006. Industry experts initially attributed these price increases to fundamental factors such as the rise in global demand, but also because of disruptions in the supply of oil. The price increases however were so substantial that additional...

The phenomenal growth of individual retirement accounts in the US, and globally, challenges both individuals and their advisors to rationally manage these investments. The two essential differences between an individual retirement account and an institutional portfolio are the length of the...

The creation and growth of economic integration as an area of economics is the result primarily of practical rather than academic interest. Although economic nationalism and antagonism still prevail as the basic form of world economic order, economic history presents us with specific examples...

We present evidence that shocks to household consumption growth are negatively skewed, persistent, countercyclical, and play a major role in driving asset prices. We construct a parsimonious model where heterogeneous households have recursive preferences and a single state variable drives the...