Banks should evaluate whether a borrower is likely to default. The author applies several techniques in the extensive mathematical literature of stochastic optimal control/dynamic programming to derive an optimal debt in an environment where there are risks on both the asset and liabilities...

In an intensively discussed paper, Andreoni and Sprenger (2012) , henceforth A&S, present an experiment where subjects can allocate money between two different points of time under the condition of risk. A&S claim that their results refute discounted expected utility (DEU) as well as prospect...

Based on the aggregation of individual willingness-to-pay for a statistical life, we calibrate an intertemporal optimization model to determine the aggregate welfare losses from HIV/AIDS in 25 Eastern European countries. Assuming a discount rate of three percent, we find a total welfare loss for...

We construct a Blanchard-style overlapping generations model consisting of long-lived individuals who have uninsurable idiosyncratic risk resulting from uncertain retirement periods and medical costs in retirement. Without social insurance, such individuals must save for these eventualities. We...

Much analysis in macroeconomics empirically addresses economy-wide incentives behind consumer/investment choices by using insights from the way a single representative household would behave. Heterogeneity at the micro level can jeopardize attempts to back up the representative consumer...

Aphorisms that "Rising tides raise all boats" or that material advances of the rich eventually "Trickle Down" to the poor are really maxims regarding the nature of stochastic processes that underlay the income/wellbeing paths of groups of individuals. This paper looks at the implications for the...

In this paper we analyze theoretically and empirically the impact of an increase in income inequality on the current account balance. We develop a model with consumption externalities and heterogeneous agents which explains how an increase in income inequality can affect negatively or positively...

There is a general agreement that (a) climate change is one of the most serious environmental problems, that (b) the analysis of climate change is confronted with a large degree of uncertainty and (c) that these uncertainties need to be taken into account to arrive at meaningful policy...

This paper develops a real options approach to the optimal sequencing of antiretroviral drug cocktails for HIV/AIDS patients in resource-poor settings. The analysis focuses on the implications of endogenous resistance mutations in the virus that reduce or eliminate the effectiveness of...

Degradation of ecosystem services may be a major component of climate change damage, and incorporation of this factor could significantly alter the significance of uncertainty in climate-economy modeling. However, this aspect has been little investigated by economic analyses of climate change...