Correlations of equity securities have varied substantially over time and remain a source of continuing policy debate. This paper studies stock market correlations in an equilibrium model with heterogeneous risk aversion. In the model, preference heterogeneity causes countercyclical variations...

the long run mean and/or the persistence of expected inflation.

We analyze the performance of irrational investors, who mistake expected returns of assets in a multi-asset economy. Mistakes by probabilistically unsophisticated investors that a priori seem small lead to severe underperformance compared with rational investors, under general conditions. Our...

We analyze the interlinkages between foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) between Germany and the major economies. First, we show that Tobin’s q helps explaining the variation of the growth rate of the stock of FDI. Second, we show that foreign and the home...

We investigate whether corporate finance incentives affect the extent of corporate hedging with property insurance. Using a database that contains detailed insurance information, we document a positive relation between the expected costs of distress and property insurance coverage. We also show...

We study the consumption-portfolio problem with realized capital gain taxation. The distinguishing feature of our analysis is that we impose on the model an important element of the tax code that has received little attention in the academic literature: the limited use of capital losses....

Using a database of more than 180,000 private companies from 2000 to 2009, we find that the benefits of holding more cash vary substantially with a firm’s size and the conditions it faces. Cash holdings matter most for small firms: when there are negative shocks to industry or macroeconomic...

This research addresses whether geographic diversification provides benefits over industry diversification in a sample of European country and industry indexes. The methodology allows performance comparisons with short-selling constraints, upper and lower bounds, and many benchmarks. In the...

We investigate whether corporate finance incentives aect the extent of corporate hedging with property insurance. Using a database that contains detailed insurance information, we show that rms buy property insurance to reduce the expected costs of distress. Further, we document a scale effect:...

This research addresses whether geographic diversification provides benefits over industry diversification. In the absence of constraints, no empirical evidence is found to support the argument that country diversification is superior. With short-selling constraints, however, the geographic...