Our paper examines whether the failure of unsophisticated investors to rebalance their portfolios can help to explain the countercyclical volatility of aggregate risk compensation in financial markets. To answer this question, we set up a model in which a large mass of investors do not rebalance...

Aggregate consumption growth risk explains why low interest rate currencies do not appreciate as much as the interest rate differential and why high interest rate currencies do not depreciate as much as the interest rate differential. Domestic investors earn negative excess returns on low...

The consumption growth beta of an investment strategy that goes long in high interest rate currencies and short in low interest rate currencies is large and significant. Consumption risk price differs significantly from zero, even after accounting for the sampling uncertainty introduced by the...

Our paper examines whether the well-documented failure of unsophisticated investors to rebalance their portfolios can help to explain the enormous counter-cyclical volatility of aggregate risk compensation in financial markets. To answer this question, we set up a model in which CRRA-utility...

We quantitatively characterize the optimal capital and labor income tax in an overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic, uninsurable income shocks and permanent productivity differences of households. The optimal capital income tax rate is significantly positive at 36 percent. The optimal...

This paper studies an overlapping generations model with stochastic production and incomplete markets to assess whether the introduction of an unfunded social security system leads to a Pareto improvement. When returns to capital and wages are imperfectly correlated, a system that endows retired...

We quantitatively characterize the optimal mix of progressive income taxes and education subsidies in a model with endogenous human capital formation, borrowing constraints, income risk and incomplete financial markets. In addition to the distortions of labor supply, progressive taxes weaken the...