I develop a dynamic theory of luxury consumption, particularly emphasizing the causal effect that pursuit of luxury goods has on wealth accumulation. A quasi-luxury is defined as a good whose marginal rate of substitution is increasing in a utility index. Under certain conditions, it is indeed a...

ABSTRACT By using a panel survey of Japanese adults, we show that smoking behavior is associated with personal time discounting and its biases, such as hyperbolic discounting and the sign effect, in the way that theory predicts: smoking depends positively on the discount rate and the degree of...

This paper extends the arbitrage pricing theory to an international setting. Specifying a linear factor return-generating model in local currency terms, the author shows that the usual risk-diversification rule in the arbitrage pricing theory does not yield a riskless portfolio unless currency...