Hall (1978) theorized that future consumption could be written only as a function of its current consumption. Since this result is known to be wrong in data, we reexamine, from Flavin's original equations (1981), how they may have reached this conclusion. In the Appendix, we derive a generic...

This paper relates to the macroeconomic and monetary policy aspects of the so-called "credit channel" of monetary transmission. We present an intertemporal macroeconomic equilibrium model of a competitive economy where current production is financed by bank credit, and then we use it to identify...

Cross-country evidence on inflation and income inequality suggests that they are positively correlated. I explore the hypothesis that this correlation is the outcome of a distributional conflict underlying the determination of fiscal policy.

This paper studies the structure and time consistency of optimal monetary policy from a public finance perspective in an economy where agents differ in preference for liquidity and holdings of nominal assets. I find that the presence of distributional effects breaks the link between time...

This paper looks at the history of money and its modern form from a scientific and mathematical point of view. The approach here is to emphasize simplicity. A straightforward model and algebraic formula for a large economy analogous to the ideal gas law of thermodynamics is proposed. It may be...

The paper considers a modelin which limited liability causes an asset substitution problem for banks. The problem can at times become so severe that the current regulatory framework – based on a combination of effectively full deposit insurance, minimum capital requirements and prudential...

The critical causes of the risk-averse behaviour of banks in funding Small and Medium Enterprises ( SMEs) in Nigeria, monetary policy and financial stability implications of SMEs “Credit Crunch” were evaluated. This was done along the lines of inadequate capital base of the institutions in...

In this paper, we analyze the financial asset selection behavior of Japanese households. Especially, we focus on whether or not liquidity constraint decreases the amount of a householdfs risky assets. To investigate this, we first empirically examine which types of household suffer from...

I estimate a life cycle model of consumption choice with unemployment risk. Employed individuals face the risk of losing their job. Unemployed agents receive job random offers of different quality, which they can accept or reject. Following the loss of a job and during unemployment, an agent’s...

This note extends Lucas' (1987) analysis to assess welfare gains of economic growth and welfare costs of consumption inequality, both within and across countries. We find that the welfare costs of inequality are significantly larger than the gains of economic growth. While the gains of economic...