We document that the fraction of entrepreneurs who work in the region where they were born is significantly higher than the corresponding fraction for dependent workers. This difference is more pronounced in more developed regions and positively related to the degree of local financial...

In this article we queantify the aggregate, distributional and welfare consequences of two revenue neutral flat-tax reforms using a model economy that replicates the U.S. distributions of earnings, income and wealth in very much detail. We find that the less progressive reform brings about a 2.4...

We analyze how the financial conditions of the firm affect the compensation structure of workers, the size of the firm, and its dynamics. Firms that are financially constrained offer long-term wage contracts characterized by an increasing wage profile, that is,they pay lower wages today in...

Why are new financial instruments created? Why are they needed and what purpose do they serve? This paper proposes the view that financial development arises as a response to the contractual needs of emerging technologies. Exogenous technological progress generates a demand for new financial...

We propose new approaches to test for spanning in the return and stochastic discount factor mean-variance frontiers, which assess if either the centred or uncentred mean and cost representing portfolios are shared by the initial and extended sets of assets. We show that our proposed tests are...

Auditing is introduced into a model of bank capital regulation. Deterministic and stochastic auditing strategies are studied. Contrary to intuition, auditing of bank risk should be focused on the safest banks because they hold the least amount of capital. Risky banks, which hold more capital,...

This paper quantifies the macroeconomic and distributional implications of an array of flat tax reforms for Spain. A standard general equilibrium economy with heterogeneous agents is used to infer the behavioral parameters of individuals and to evaluate the impact of the tax reforms. We find...

This paper studies the estimation of dynamic discrete games of incomplete information. Two main econometric issues appear in the estimation of these models: the indeterminacy problem associated with the existence of multiple equilibria, and the computational burden in the solution of the game....

The Phillips curve has flattened in Spain over 1995-2006: unemployment has fallen by 15 percentage points, with roughly constant inflation. This change has been more pronounced than elsewhere. We argue that this stems from the immigration boom in Spain over this period. We show that the New...