Which pricing kernel restrictions are needed to make low dimensional Markov models consistent with given sets of predictions on aggregate stock-market fluctuations ? This paper develops theoretical test conditions addressing this and related reverse engineering issues arising within a fairly...

Mortgages are one-sided contracts under which the borrower may terminate the contract at any time, while the lender must commit to honoring the terms of the contract throughout its life. There are two aspects to this feature of the contract that are modeled in this paper. The first is that the...

While the existence of fixed costs in entering asset markets is the leading rationalization of the "participation puzzle" -the fact that most households do not hold stocks, despite the diversification gains and the significant risk-premium involved-, most motivations of these fixed costs are as...

A parental seller with market power to some degree in its product market can earn rents. In this context, there is a gain to granting credit for the purchase of the product and thus the establishment of captive finance company for expanding the sales by offering loans to consumers who need...

In this paper we ask the empirical question are bond covenants priced? Consistent with the Costly Contracting Hypothesis (CCH) developed by Smith and Warner (1979), we find that they are. We document a negative relation between the promised yield on corporate debt issues and the presence of...

Although poverty levels have been diminishing in Mexico since the late 90’s, several regions still show high levels of poverty which are extremely high in some rural areas. The paper addresses the issue of the linkages between sectoral growth (urban/rural) and poverty levels by applying...

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...

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...

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...

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...