Publications
The Ostrich in Us: Selective Attention to Financial Accounts, Income, Spending, and Liquidity - Review of Economics and Statistics (ReStat), forthcoming.
(with Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business School)
Other versions: NBER, CEPR
Media Coverage: VoxEU
Misfortune and Mistake: The Financial Conditions and Decision-making Ability of High-Cost Loan Borrowers - Journal of Political Economy, 2024 132:9, 3173-3213.
(with Leandro Carvalho, USC, and Dan Silverman, Arizona State University)
[Slides]
Other versions: NBER
The Co-holding Puzzle: New Evidence from Transaction-Level Data - Review of Financial Studies, 2024.
(with John Gathergood, University of Nottingham)
Other versions: CEPR
Media Coverage: VoxEU
Retirement-Consumption Puzzles: New Evidence from Personal Finances - Journal of Public Economics, 2024.
(with Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business School)
Other versions: NBER
Media Coverage: VoxEU, MarketWatch
Mobile Apps and Financial Decision Making - Review of Finance, 2023, 27(3): 977-996.
(with Bruce Carlin, UCLA Anderson, and Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business School)
Other versions: NBER
Media Coverage: International Business Times
Generational Differences in Managing Personal Finances - AEA Papers and Proceedings, 2019, 109: 54-59.
(with Bruce Carlin, UCLA Anderson, and Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business Schoo)
How Does Daddy at Home Affect Marital Stability? - Economic Journal, 2020, 130(629), 1471-1500
(with Herdis Steingrimsdottir, Copenhagen Business School)
Media Coverage: El Mundo, OUPblog
The Liquid Hand-to-Mouth: Evidence From Personal Finance Management Software - Review of Financial Studies, 2018, 31(11): 4398-4446.
(with Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business School)
This project has been awarded a grant of $300,000 from The Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF).
Media Coverage: Ideas at Work, Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, MoneyTalksNews, Nordic Business Forum, Clark Howard
Household Financial Distress and Initial Endowments: Evidence from the 2008 Financial Crisis - Health Economics, 2016, 25(0): 43-56.
Media Coverage: Financial Times, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, El Mundo, VoxEU, Le Monde
See video interview here.
Peer Effects and Academic Achievement: A Regression Discontinuity Approach, Economics of Education Review, 2013, 36(0): 108–121.
The Impact of Classroom Peers in a Streaming System, Economics of Education Review, 2015, 49(0): 110-128.
Working Papers
Bargaining over Risk: The Impact of Decision Power on Household Portfolios - Revise & Resubmit, Review of Finance
(with Tomas Thornquist, Stockholm School of Economics)
Credit Smoothing
(with Sean Hundtofte, NY FED, and Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business School)
Other versions: NBER
Borrowing in Response to Windfalls
(with Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business School)
What Makes Depositors Tick? Bank Data Insights into Households' Liquid Asset Allocation (draft available upon request) (with Fernando Cirelli, Columbia University)
This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of depositor behavior using a unique panel of high-frequency individual bank account holdings and transactions, combined with survey data from bank customers. We examine who moves deposits, what triggers these movements, and where funds are allocated. Our findings reveal persistent heterogeneity in portfolio allocations and returns, with financial literacy, education, and wealth influencing these differences. Using both expected and unexpected income and expense shocks, we show that fluctuations in individual wealth shape portfolio adjustments. Finally, we demonstrate that wealthier individuals are more likely to reallocate funds toward higher-return assets during periods of policy tightening.
Child penalties in Personal Finance: Evidence from Bank Data (draft available upon request)
(with David Westerheide, Lund University)
(with David Westerheide, Lund University)
Using detailed and comprehensive bank data, we study the impacts that children have on gender gaps in financial choices. It is well established that women are, on average, less likely to participate in risky asset markets and save less. We show that the arrival of children contributes to the gender gaps in these financial choices: At the exact point in time when women become mothers their propensity to participate in risky asset markets drops and their propensity to save through savings accounts does as well, the amounts they hold in savings accounts is reduced as well as their average monthly savings, and they draw down their private pensions. These outcomes are unaffected as men become fathers. We therefore conclude there are ``child penalties'' in personal finances that contribute to the gender gaps in financial choices.