Researchers have incorporated labor or credit market frictions in isolation within simple neoclassical models to open up a role for institutions, inject realism into their models and examine the impact of these distortions on output and employment. We present an overlapping generations model...

The link between measured risk aversion and the decision to become an entrepreneur iswell established, but the link between risk preferences and entrepreneurial success is not.Standard theoretical models of occupational choice under uncertainty imply a positivecorrelation between an...

This paper reviews and synthesizes the theory of information economics and empiricalevidence on how information changes the behavior of consumers, households and firms. I show thatconsumers respond to new information in food experiments but perhaps not in retirement accountmanagement. Some...

For the first 13 years after entry, the hazard rate for firm exits is persistently higher forurban than rural firms. While differences in observed industry market, local marketand firm attributes explain some of the rural-urban gap in firm survival, rural firmsretain a survival advantage 25%...

This paper assesses the merits of countercyclical bank balance sheet regulation for the stabilization of financial and economic cycles and examines its interaction with monetary policy. The framework used is a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with banks and bank capital, in which...

Recent work in the field of mechanism design has led some researchers to propose institutional changes that would permit parties to enter into nonmodifiable contracts, which is not possible under current contract law. This paper demonstrates that it may well be socially desirable not to enforce...

Risk classification refers to the use of observable characteristics by insurers to group individuals with similar expected claims, compute the corresponding premiums, and thereby reduce asymmetric information. With perfect risk classification, premiums fully reflect the expected cost associated...

A large theoretical literature shows that competition reduces banks' franchise values and induces them to take more risk. Recent research contradicts this result: When banks charge lower rates, their borrowers have an incentive to choose safer investments, so they will in turn be safer. However,...