Suchergebnisse

Governments can efficiently provide liquidity, as when the banking system is bailed out. We study a model in which not all assets can be used to purchase all other assets at every date. Agents sometimes want to sell projects. The market price of the projects sold depends on the supply of liquidity, which is determined in general equilibrium. While private liquidity provision is socially beneficial since it allows valuable reallocations, it is also socially costly since liquidity suppliers could have made more efficient investments ex ante. There is a role for the government to supply liquidity by issuing government securities.

Using micro-level panel data and a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we study the effect of political uncertainty on household stock market participation. We find that households significantly reduce their participation and reallocate funds to safer assets during periods of increased political uncertainty. The decline in participation is related to households' response to elevated asset risk and their incentive to hedge increased labor income risk. In situations where uncertainty remains high after elections, pre-election reduction in participation is only partially reversed, reflecting a prolonged distortion in household stock investments, which can have implications for households, firms, and the economy in general.