We examine the rate of employment and the household income of the working-age population (aged 25-61) with and without disabilities over the business cycles of the 1980s and 1990s using data from the March Current Population Survey and the National Health Interview Survey. In general, we find...

Space heating accounts for a large fraction of the primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions of residential buildings. Besides targeting the insulation standard, residential heating systems (RHS) based on renewable energy sources offer the potential to reduce energy demand for space heating....

This paper studies the empirical relevance of temptation and self-control using household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We construct an infinite-horizon consumption-savings model that allows, but does not require, temptation and self-control in preferences. In the presence of...

The news media affects consumers' perceptions of the economy through three channels. First, the news media conveys economic data and the opinions of professionals to consumers. Second, consumers receive a signal about the economy through the tone and volume of economic reporting. Last, when the...

This paper examines the incidence and welfare costs of inflation in the presence of financial market frictions and home production. The results suggest that financing constraints on firms' working capital expenditures significantly increase the welfare costs relative to the standard...

Heating demand accounts for a large fraction of the overall energy demand of private households in Germany. A better understanding of the adoption and diffusion of energy-efficient and renewables-based residential heating systems (RHS) is of high policy relevance, particularly against the...

We examine how consumers and financial markets in the United States react to two health warnings about mad cow disease: the first discovery of an infected cow in December 2003 and an Oprah Winfrey show on the potentially harmful effects that aired seven years earlier. Using a unique...

The effect of expert opinion on demand for experience goods is difficult to quantify, as the relationship between purchases and reviews may be driven by product quality. Further, it is unclear whether a review-based demand effect is due to providing quality or existence information. Utilizing a...

Although complex pricing schedules are increasingly common in utility billing, it is difficult to determine whether consumers respond to complicated marginal prices because price changes are often confounded with simultaneous demand shocks or non-price policies. To overcome this challenge, we...