In the context of an international portfolio diversification problem, we find that small capitalization equity portfolios become riskier in bear markets, i.e. display negative co-skewness with other stock indices and high co-kurtosis. Because of this feature, a power utility investor ought to...

In this paper we extend the traditional life cycle model of saving and portfolio choice to allow for possible long-term unemployment spells to have permanent effects on subsequent labor income prospects. The risk of losing future labor income could imply strong human capital erosion for the...

Recent research [e.g., DeMiguel, Garlappi and Uppal, (2009), Rev. Fin. Studies] has cast doubts on the out-of-sample performance of optimizing portfolio strategies relative to naive, equally weighted ones. However, existing results concern the simple case in which an investor has a one-month...

Household portfolios include risky bonds, beyond stocks, and respond to permanent labour income shocks. This paper brings these features into a life-cycle setting, and shows that optimal stock investment is constant or increasing in age before retirement for realistic parameter combinations. The...

Human capital is the present value of future wages, which can be a large component of the total wealth of active workers. This raises the question of whether labour income risk can be hedged by how the retirement savings of workers are invested. The answer is that it cannot be hedged if...

Welfare gains to long-horizon investors may derive from time diversification that exploits non-zero intemporal return correlations associated with predictable returns. Real estate may thus become more desirable if its returns are negatively serially correlated. While it could be important for...