We first provide evidence of some retail investors taking real trading (selling) decisions which are clearly sub-optimal even from an ex-ante perspective. We then show that these investors also exhibit stronger investment biases, namely, the disposition effect, underdiversification, preference...

This chapter is concerned with the distribution of personal wealth, which usually refers to the material assets that can be sold in the marketpace, although on occasion pension rights are also included. We summarise the available evidence on wealth distribution for a number of countries. This...

I show that countercyclical earnings dynamics can have quantitatively important effects on saving and portfolio choice decisions over the life cycle. During expansions (recessions) when expected future earnings growth is high (low), households save less (more) and also invest a higher (lower)...

This paper studies the effect of deep recessions on intergenerational inequality by quantifying the welfare effects on households at different phases of the life cycle. Deep recessionary episodes are characterized by large declines in the prices of real and financial assets and in employment....

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Survey, we reveal the non-linear dependence, between-squares correlation, between stock returns and earning risk exists. To understand how this non-linear dependence affects household life-cycle profile, we develop a life-cycle model that incorporates...

Individual investors select high-fee index mutual funds despite the fact that the future payouts are nearly identical. We offer an explanation for this violation of the Law of One Price based on investor desire to diversify. While diversification in some settings may be beneficial, in the case...