Download or read book Three Essays on Macroeconomic Consequences of Stock Market Volatility written by Thomas Michael Mertens and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stock prices are very volatile. Their fundamental value as measured by the ex-post realized net present value of dividends fluctuates far less than the stock price itself. A hot debate about the efficiency of stock markets has arisen from this observation. Many researchers attribute at least some of this "excess volatility" we observe in stock prices to inefficient actions of economic agents. This dissertation is about the macroeconomic consequences of excess volatility in stock prices. It demonstrates that this volatility can lead to large reductions in welfare for households and discusses ways for governmental intervention to alleviate adverse effects. The dissertation furthermore shows that large stock market volatility can arise from tiny, in fact arbitrarily small, errors in agents' actions or in their belief formation.