Collaterality and the Housing Wealth Effect

The empirical literature has demonstrated that housing assets exhibit larger wealth effects than stocks (or, more broadly, financial assets), which is often interpreted as a larger MPC (Marginal Propensity of Consumption) out of housing wealth. Still, the question remains as to whether this stylized fact has anything to do with the collaterality of housing assets. We build a household consumption and portfolio choice model with two risky assets, housing and stocks, whereby housing can be used as collateral to borrow against. The optimizing agent’s preference and investment opportunity set generate implications of dierent MPCs for groups characterized by their respective asset/debt portfolios. Under calibrated parameters from macro data, the model exhibits the highest MPC for households who simultaneously borrow against housing asset and invest in stocks. We examine the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) micro data of homeowners and find no evidence of this implied collateral eect on non-durable consumption.wealth effects; consumption; portfolio choice; housing; collateral; borrowing constraints; household debt

Keeping Up With Fashion: Recent Trends in the Subfields of Study of Doctoral Students in Economics

We conduct an analysis of recent trends on the subfields of study that doctoral students in economics choose for their dissertations. By investigating data on the JEL classification codes of dissertations reported by the Journal of Economic Literature from 1991 to 2007, we find that the trends in the subfields of study of doctoral dissertations follow those of articles published at five major general-interest journals (American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, and Review of Economics and Statistics). In particular, the co-movement pattern is salient in subfields such as Microeconomics (D), Health, Education, and Welfare (I), and Economic Development and Growth (O). Our findings suggest that the fashion exhibited in the top-notch research journals is one of the most influential factors when doctoral students choose a subfield.Economics Research, Doctoral Dissertation, Journal Publication, Ph.D. Economist, Economics Job Market

VAR Estimates of the Housing and Stock Wealth Effects: Cross-country Evidence

We estimate the wealth effects of housing and stock market wealth using time-series data for eight developed countries. In estimation we employ the structural vector-autoregressive regressions (SVAR), which articulate the dynamic interactions of shocks to housing prices, stock values, and disposable incomes. Our results show that for these countries the initial consumption response to housing price shocks is greater than to stock market capitalization shocks, but the long-run consumption response to the latter is more persistent than to the former.Wealth Effect, Consumption, Housing, Stock Market

Two-photon and two-gluon decays of p-wave heavy quarkonium using a covariant light-front approach

In this paper, a study of two-photon and two-gluon decays in the context of p-wave heavy quarkonia is presented. Within the covariant light-front framework, the annihilation rates of scalar and tensor quarkonium states are derived. In the absence of free parameters in this case, the results for the charmonium decay widths are consistent with the experimental data. However, in comparison to other theoretical calculations, there are large discrepancies in our results regarding bottomonia.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, some typos are corrected, version to be published in Phys. Rev.

The nature of ZbZ_b states from a combined analysis of Υ(5S)→hb(mP)π+π−\Upsilon(5S)\rightarrow h_b(mP) \pi^+ \pi^- and Υ(5S)→B(∗)Bˉ(∗)π\Upsilon(5S)\rightarrow B^{(\ast)}\bar B^{(\ast)}\pi

With a combined analysis of data on $\Upsilon(5S)\rightarrow h_b(1P,2P)\pi^+\pi^-$ and $\Upsilon(5S)\rightarrow B^{(\ast)}\bar B^{(\ast)}\pi$ in an effective field theory approach, we determine resonance parameters of $Z_b$ states in two scenarios. In one scenario we assume that $Z_b$ states are pure molecular states, while in the other one we assume that $Z_b$ states contain compact components. We find that the present data favor that there should be some compact components inside $Z_b^{(\prime)}$ associated with the molecular components. By fitting the invariant mass spectra of $\Upsilon(5S)\rightarrow h_b(1P,2P)\pi^+\pi^-$ and $\Upsilon(5S)\rightarrow B^{(\ast)}\bar B^{\ast}\pi$, we determine that the probability of finding the compact components in $Z_b$ states may be as large as about $40\%$.Comment: Discussions added, version published in EPJ