Until recently, researchers in economics and finance paid relatively little attention to household portfolios. Reasons included the tendency of most households to hold simple portfolios, the inability of the dominant asset pricing models to account for household portfolio incompleteness, and the lack of detailed databases on household portfolios in many countries until the late 1980s or 1990s. Now, however, the analysis of household portfolios is emerging as a field of vigorous study.The eleven chapters in this collection provide an overview of current theoretical knowledge about the structure of household portfolios and compare predictions with empirical findings. The book describes the state-of-the-art tools of analytical, computational, and econometric investigation, as well as some of the key policy questions. It provides an original comparative analysis of household portfolios in countries for which detailed household-level data are available (the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands). Finally, it uses microdata for an in-depth study of the portfolio composition of population groups of special policy interest, such as the young, the elderly, and the rich.
Haliassos holds the Chair in Macroeconomics and Finance at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is currently Director of the Center for Financial Studies, Deputy Dean for International Relations, and Director of the Master's Program in Money and Finance. He is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Research Professor at the Mannheim Research Institute on the Economics of Aging (MEA), International Research Fellow of NETSPAR (The Netherlands), and External Fellow of the Centre for Finance and Credit Markets (University of Nottingham, UK). He currenty serves on the Panel of the journal Economic Policy. Haliassos received a B.A. in Economics from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University in 1987. Prior to joining the faculty of Goethe University Frankfurt in 2004, he was a faculty member at the University of Maryland , and then at the University of Cyprus, where he also served as Deputy Dean of the School of Economics and Business. He has held visiting appointments inter alia at the European University Institute in the Chair of Finance and Consumption, and at the Center of Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF). He has recently served as advisor to the European Central Bank on the construction of a Eurozone Survey of Household Finances and Consumption. His research interests lie in Macroeconomics and Finance with emphasis on household finance. His papers have appeared in major international journals, including the International Economic Review and the Economic Journal; and in edited volumes, including the Handbook of Monetary Economics and the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and Finance. He has co-edited an MIT Press volume on Household Portfolios, that has become a standard reference in household finance.
Haliassos is currently a member of the Greek National Council on Research and Technology (ESET).
