Analysis of the equity premium puzzle has focused on private sector capital markets. The object of this paper is to consider the welfare and policy implications of each of the broad classes of explanations of the equity premium puzzle. As would be expected, the greater the deviation from the...

Excessive volatility of asset prices like that generated in the 'noise trader' model of De Long et al. is one factor that plausibly might contribute to an explanation of the equity premium. We extend the De Long et al. model to allow for privatization of publicly-owned assets and assess the...

We examine a dynamic model of English auctions with independent private values. There is a single object for sale and it is not possible for the seller, who has a value of zero for the object, to commit not to sell in the future if a sale is not accomplished today. The seller may be able to...