In this paper we analyse unique data on credit applications received by the leading provider of consumer credit in Italy (Findomestic). The data set covers a five-year period (1995-1999) during which the consumer credit market rapidly expanded in Italy and a new law (the usury law) came into...

The paper deals with the e.ects of cohabitation of grown children with their parents on household saving, using data from Italy and the Netherlands. It presents a two-period gametheoretical model where the child has to decide whether to move out of the parental home. This decision is affected by...

In this Paper we analyse unique data on credit applications received by the leading provider of consumer credit in Italy (Findomestic). The data set covers a five year period (1995-99) during which the consumer credit market rapidly expanded in Italy and a new law came into force that set a...

We analyze the importance of longevity risk for the solvency of portfolios of pension annuities. We distinguish two types of mortality risk. Micro-longevity risk quantifies the risk related to uncertainty in the time of death if survival probabilities are known with certainty, while...

In modeling and forecasting mortality the Lee-Carter approach is the benchmark methodology. In many empirical applications the Lee-Carter approach results in a model that describes the log central death rates by means of linear trends. However, due to the volatility in (past) mortality data, the...

We empirically compare a wide range of term structure models used in the pricing and, in particular, hedging of caps and swaptions. We analyze the influence of the number of factors on the hedging and pricing results, and investigate the type of data—interest rate or derivative price—in...