This paper analyzes a unique dataset, which contains results of a large-scale experiment in the credit card market. Two strange phenomena that suggest time inconsistency in consumer behavior are observed: First, consumers prefer an introductory offer which has a lower interest rate with a...

In this paper, we analyze the strength and nature of bequest motives in the United States using data from the 2000 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The results of our analysis suggest that bequest motives are very strong in the United States and that they are altruistically motivated. This...

We use household data to estimate the cost of participating to financial markets and the cross sectional dispersion of stock market optimism. Our analysis is based on a mean-variance framework, within which we derive structural decision rules for individual composition of the risky assets...

This paper sets out a theoretical framework for models of the household production and labour supply decisions of families, and estimates empirical specifications on time use survey data containing information on labour supply, domestic work and pure leisure. The models are then compared with...

Recent empirical studies suggest that the average marginal propensity to consume (MPC) has declined. This paper explains the declining trend of the MPC with a standard representative consumer model where borrowing constraints become more relaxed as suggested by data. With an increase in...

We designed a commitment savings product and implemented it using a randomized control experiment in the Philippines. This savings product was intended for individuals who want to commit now to save later, and who were sophisticated enough to engage in such a mechanism. Before offering the...

This paper studies the implications of black-white differences in uninsurable labor market risk for racial differences in the value of human capital. Two approaches to estimate the value of human capital in the presence of heterogeneous labor market risk and preferences for risk are implemented....

The financial crisis in 1997 caused serious deterioration of the Korean economy. We examined the credit crunch in Korea and how it affected household welfare. With household panel data from 1996-1998, we estimated a switching regression model of a consumption Euler equation, which is augmented...

In this paper we take a different modeling approach based on the component driven (CD) model developed in Kuan, Huang, and Tsay~(2003) to test the permanent income hypothesis (PIH), an example of intertemporal choice models. A key feature of this approach is that it explicitly allows for state...

Competitive agents extract in continuous time from a commons. Capital market access allows them to both save and borrow against their extraction stream. When the commons asset grows more quickly than the privately stored one, multiple equilibria are found for intermediate commons endowments. One...