We solve the problem of an investor who chooses which assets' payoff to acquireinformation about before making an investment decision. Investors specialize becauseinformation has increasing returns: As an investor learns more about an asset, itbecomes less risky and more desirable to hold; as he...

Many explanations for home or local bias rely on information asymmetry: investors know more about their home assets. A criticism of these theories is that asymmetry should disappear when information is tradable. This criticism is flawed. If investors have asymmetric prior beliefs, but choose how...

When a boom ends, the downturn is generally sharp and short. When growth resumes, theboom is more gradual. Our explanation rests on learning about productivity. When agentsbelieve productivity is high, they work, invest, and produce more. More production generates higher precision information....

This paper investigates the long-term relationship between financial market development and economic development in Belgium. We use a new data set of stock market development indicators to argue that financial market development substantially affected economic growth. We find strong evidence...

Many papers have argued that home bias arises because home investors can predict pays off their home assets more accurately than foreigners can. But why does this information advantage exist in a world where investors can learn foreign information? We model investors who are endowed with a small...

We investigate the 30 year increase in the level and dispersion of house prices across U.S. metropolitan areas in a calibrated dynamic general equilibrium island model. The model is based on two main assumptions: households flow in and out metropolitan areas in response to local wage shocks, and...

If an investor wants to form a portfolio of risky assets and can exert effort to collect information on the future value of these assets before he invests, which assets should he learn about? The best assets to acquire information about are ones the investor expects to hold. But the assets the...

Many argue that home bias arises because home investors can predict home asset payoffs more accurately than foreigners can. But why doesn't global information access eliminate this asymmetry? We model investors, endowed with a small home information advantage, who choose what information to...

For the last several years, the price of listed real estate stocks has been unusually high relative to dividends. We explore whether low interest rates or low risk premia can account for the high valuation ratios and find that they cannot. Lower interest rates have been offset by rising risk...

The covid-19 pandemic induced a major shift in the prevalence of remote and hybrid work arrangements. This review article studies the effects of this remote work revolution for residential and commercial real estate values and for the future of cities. It also discusses consequences for...