Abstract: At a given earnings variance, a more upside-oriented historical earnings distribution is associated with greater subsequent entry into stocks or mutual funds. I document this pattern by assigning earnings distributions from the Current Population Survey to later portfolios in the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Using validated earnings links and 27,419 portfolio transitions, a standard deviation of composition remaining after other regressors corresponds to 0.70 percentage point more entry for total earnings, or 0.66 when wage and total earnings destinations are positive. Lower and upper quantile tails also have opposite-signed entry associations. Adjusting for observable earnings progression reduces the estimated magnitudes, and inference is sensitive to how estimated-risk uncertainty is incorporated. The paper provides a portfolio-entry benchmark for household-finance models that distinguish earnings opportunities from adverse risk.

Abstract: Using transaction-level data on 189,530 Chinese retail investors over the 2013–2016 boom and bust, we measure experience as counts of large realized gains and losses and find that it reshapes the disposition effect, the tendency to sell winners and hold losers, in an asymmetric way. A two-standard-deviation increase in accumulated large losses raises the propensity to sell winners rather than losers by about 23% of the baseline effect, while an equivalent increase in gains lowers it by about 21%. Composition-matched simulations show the asymmetry is not a mechanical artifact of building experience from past trades. To explain both the baseline effect and this asymmetry, we build a memory-based recall model in which similarity-weighted retrieval of past outcomes guides selling. A single retrieval channel reproduces all three patterns without shifting preferences.

Abstract: Weaker labor-market conditions at entry are associated with more later saving designated for family-common, child, and other uses. I document this pattern using 29 waves of the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers and 39 graduation cohorts. Among married respondents with complete reports, an entry-market decline comparable to the difference between late-bubble and trough cohorts predicts 4,750 yen more September household saving, about 7 percent of the sample mean. Approximately 4,110 yen of this difference falls outside the two spouse-specific categories. Share point estimates fall for both spouses after adverse entry, while their relative split is imprecisely estimated. Less frequent household-goods spending and more discouraged borrowing accompany the saving pattern. The comparison uses national entry conditions assigned by birth year and school-leaving age; regional and education-specific designs do not independently corroborate it. The findings show how the allocation of a saving flow can distinguish household adjustment that aggregate balances and individual shares alone leave unresolved.

Abstract: What does asking again add to a household-finance survey? I link two to six early intertemporal-choice responses from 3,099 Japanese households to financial wealth six to eight years after a baseline balance sheet. Compared with a flexible first answer, repeated category shares reduce held-out prediction error by an additional 1.57 percentage points of control-model loss when baseline wealth is unavailable, but only 0.008 points when it is included. The conditional gain varies across evaluation samples. A separate measurement problem remains: the displayed-rate wealth gradient depends heavily on the upper response category, and flexible category profiles reject its linear restriction. Repeated answers contain information about future reported financial position, but their predictive value depends on the information already observed and how the answers are represented.

Abstract: The household cost of an employer insurance mandate depends on how workers already finance coverage. We study Japan's 2016 expansion of employee social insurance using a cohort of married women initially employed part-time, with firm size and pension category fixed before the 2012 announcement. Between announcement and enforcement, the large-versus-small-firm gap in the probability of earning ¥1.06–1.29 million annually falls by 14.1 percentage points among dependent spouses and rises by an imprecise 7.0 points among workers already contributing directly. The difference is −21.1 points (standard error 8.9). This contrast reverses an announcement-period increase; the change from pre-announcement levels is imprecise. Differential earnings availability and sensitivity to the comparison group limit causal interpretation. Complementary evidence distinguishes enrollment among current part-time workers from enrollment in the original cohort. The findings document earnings adjustment across workers with different household financing arrangements and show why interpreting coverage expansion requires following the initially exposed population.

Abstract: Industrial employment can facilitate marriage through stable earnings while delaying household formation when jobs, housing, and residence are allocated together. We study this tension in China's Third Front using the 1982, 1990, and 2000 population censuses. In 1982, a 13.7-percentage-point increase in the registered heavy-industry share is associated with a 4.23-point larger gap in never-married rates between ages 20–24 and 30–34 inside designated provinces than elsewhere. Predetermined siting controls reduce the differential to 2.24 points. Retrospective first-marriage histories observed in 2000 yield a similar age profile, and education shares account for 15.5 percent of a comparable young–old gap. However, comparisons of pre-campaign and build-out cohorts do not yield a robust additional marriage shift inside Third Front provinces. The evidence documents a recurring association between industrial composition and young singlehood, rather than a causal effect of the construction campaign. It distinguishes a demographic pattern among residents of industrial places from an effect assigned to people exposed to a particular industrial policy.

Preliminary abstract: Does the same investor treat a loss differently when it is hers rather than an algorithm’s? We study 100,000 investors on Alipay’s Ant Fortune platform (September 2020 to September 2024) who simultaneously hold a self-directed mutual-fund portfolio and a robo-advisory account (BangNiTou). Comparing the same investor across two accounts that differ only in who chose the holdings, we find that the response to losses does not weaken under delegation—it reverses sign. On her own account she holds and adds to losers (averaging down); on the delegated account she sells losers and chases winners. A single loss-aversion parameter cannot produce this sign flip. It follows, we argue, from delegation changing what a return means: on her own account a loss is processed through realization utility, while on the delegated account it is both a signal about the algorithm and a source of dissonance she resolves by exiting. We estimate the model structurally and quantify the return investors forgo through self-directed loss aversion. Full empirical results remain in progress.

Abstract: Why do some homes sell slowly at high prices while others sell slowly at low prices? I combine Beijing housing transactions, repeated asking prices, and an estimated search-and-negotiation model. Both high and low recorded asks accompany long selling times, but the low-ask relationship reverses among homes with no recorded price adjustments. The price premium associated with few comparable sales largely disappears after conditioning on signed asks. Greater baseline follower interest predicts fewer subsequent price cuts. The model separates the return to meeting more buyers from the return to waiting for an optimistic offer. Joint estimation of prices, ask–sale gaps, and duration favors persistent differences in buyer access. With flexible quote errors, the combined fit places almost no weight on the information content of comparable counts. Yet an information-only specification has a close predictive score and implies a 9.07% reduction in selling time from a 25% increase in valuation-signal precision, compared with almost no change in the combined fit. Similar trading patterns can therefore support different valuations of information. The equilibrium extension identifies when lost transaction information makes fewer competing sellers slow agreement, and when an independent report can reverse that effect.

Abstract: Can lower prices sustain housing trade when buyers cannot acquire the school rights enjoyed by existing owners? I study a Beijing reform that preserved the previous admission rules for eligible homeowners, while new buyers faced assignment across several schools. Linking enrollment notices to housing transactions, I compare winter-to-spring changes around January 2019 with the same seasons in earlier years. Sales remain roughly flat in formerly key-school neighborhoods but rise in ordinary-school neighborhoods. After adjusting for earlier seasonal patterns, the gap in relative sales growth is 32–45 percent; transaction prices are also 4–5 percent lower relative to ordinary-school neighborhoods. A matching model explains why price reductions need not restore trade when a sale changes the rights attached to a home. The model also shows that portable school rights can facilitate exchange while reducing other families' access when school places are fixed.

Abstract: Employer-sponsored retirement accounts can make job endings labor-market and portfolio events. I study reported retirement lump sums for which no rollover was completed or planned in 39,481 SIPP person-years for workers with positive prior main-job earnings and prior 401(k) or thrift ownership. Rates are 0.78 percent among continuers, 2.61 among voluntary separators, and 3.68 among involuntary separators; adjusted separator–continuer gaps are 1.95 and 2.78 percentage points. The 0.83-point difference has a 95-percent interval [-0.47,2.13]. Non-rollover accounts for 68 and 77 percent of their additional receipt. Elevated non-rollover extends to voluntary mobility; its relation to displacement depends on the labor-market contrast.