Since its emergence in the 1980s, the subject of Household Finance has rapidly grown into a critical area of economic focus. Research, policy and practitioner interest has increased as household portfolios have become more complicated in response to financial innovation and new challenges in retirement financing. Whilst the earliest research was initially focussed on the limited tendency to hold stocks and diversify risk, recent work has developed into a broader exploration of the challenges posed by limited financial literacy, cognition, behavioural biases and cultural predispositions, and the ways to overcome them through financial education, advice, institutional reform and regulation.Including an original introduction by the editor, Household Finance brings together the most essential papers on the subject together in a comprehensive three-volume collection, and will be an invaluable resource for researchers - including practitioners with an interest in research - and students alike.

Experts from economics, finance, law, policy, and banking discuss the design and implementation of a future capital market union in Europe. The plan for further development of Europe's economic and monetary union foresees the creation of a capital market union (CMU)-a single market for capital in the entire Eurozone. The need for citizens and firms of all European countries to have access to funding, together with the pressure to improve the efficiency and risk-sharing opportunities of the financial system in general, put the CMU among the top priorities on the Eurozone's agenda. In this volume, leading academics in economics, finance, and law, along with policy makers and practitioners, discuss the design and implementation of a future CMU. Contributors describe the key design challenges of the CMU; specific opportunities and obstacles for reaching the CMU's goals of increasing the economic well-being of households and the profitability and viability of firms; the role that markets-from the latest fintech developments to traditional equity markets-can play in the future success of CMU; and the institutional framework needed for CMU in the aftermath of the global recession. Contributors Sumit Agarwal, Franklin Allen, Valentina Allotti, Gene Amromin, John Armour, Geert Bekaert, Itzhak Ben-David, Marcello Bianchi, Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi, Claudio Borio, Franziska Bremus, Marina Brogi, Claudia M. Buch, Giacomo Calzolari, Souphala Chomsisengphet, Luca Enriques, Douglas D. Evanoff, Ester Faia, Eilis Ferran, Jeffrey N. Gordon, Michael Haliassos, Campbell R. Harvey, Kathryn Judge, Suzanne Kalss, Valentina Lagasio, Katya Langenbucher, Christian T. Lundblad, Massimo Marchesi, Alexander Michaelides, Stefano Micossi, Emanuel Moench, Mario Nava, Giorgio Barba Navaretti, Giovanna Nicodano, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Marco Pagano, Monica Paiella, Lubos Pastor, Alain Pietrancosta, Richard Portes, Alberto Franco Pozzolo, Stephan Siegel, Wolfe-Georg Ringe, Diego Valiante

The 2007 to 2009 financial crisis resulted in the re-emergence of the debate on financial regulation and its relationships with other macroeconomic policies, particularly monetary policy. In Europe, the financial crisis was followed by the sovereign debt crisis, as the bail-out of the financial sector put strains on public finances in several countries. The sequence of events called for a strengthening of the union, ranging from a common framework for supervisory policy that could minimize the risk of unforeseen bank or country defaults to a common resolution mechanism that could set equal rules across countries and reduce ex-ante mis-incentives to risk-taking and moral hazard. This analysis of the state of and prospects for financial regulation examines the lending and saving behavior of banks and households as well as their borrowing activities in order to understand the conflicting priorities and complicated decisions involved in the development and implementation of financial legislation.