We study the effects of broadband internet use on the investment decisions of individual investors. A public program in Norway provides plausibly exogenous variation in internet use. Our instrumental variables estimates show that internet use causes a substantial increase in stock market...

Do employees benefit from worker representation on corporate boards? Economists and policymakers are keenly interested in this question - especially lately, as worker representation is widely promoted as an important way to ensure the interests and views of the workers. To investigate this...

In this article, we document and discuss salient features of collective bargaining systems in the OECD countries, with the goal of debunking some misconceptions and myths and revitalizing the general interest in wage setting and collective bargaining. We hope that such an interest may help close...

This study explores economic aspects of the market for long term care (LTC) with a special focus on Japan. First, we describe the LTC system in Japan as presently implemented, and we highlight some aspects of the program that are novel and potentially of interest to other countries seeking...

Prior literature on asset patterns among the elderly often overlooks housing wealth as a determinant of retiree wealth, particularly in the Japanese context. Yet releasing equity in housing may be a natural mechanism to boost consumption, reduce public pension liability, and mitigate the demand...

Large publicly-held pools of assets are playing an increasingly prominent role in the global investment arena. We compare three distinct forms of such public funds, namely foreign exchange reserve funds, sovereign wealth funds, and public pension funds, to highlight their differences and...

Over the last half-century, around the world, many nations have seen plummeting fertility rates and mounting life expectancies. These two factors are the engine behind unprecedented global aging. In this paper, we explore how the demographic transition may influence financial markets and, in...

As the level of retirement-related assets has grown, so too has public and private interest in so-called "Socially Responsible Investment" (SRI), an investment strategy that employs criteria other than the usual financial risk and return factors when selecting firms in which to invest. This...

In this paper we derive and compare the value of life annuity products in an international context. Our specific goal is to assess the money's worth and adverse selection impact of annuities in two countries Singapore and Australia that have mandatory DC-type retirement plans. This similarity in...

We develop a general equilibrium tax model to evaluate the impacts of equal yield base broadening in indirect taxes from high rate narrow based (typically manufactures) taxes to broad based taxes (including services) such as a VAT. We capture differences in choice of mode of supply between...