We compare the dynamics of in flation and bond yields leading up to a sovereign debt crisis in settings where asset markets are frictionless to other settings with financial fric- tions. As compared to the case with frictionless asset markets, an asset market structure with financial frictions...

We provide two ways to reconcile small values of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution (IES) that range between 0.35 and 0.5 with empirical evidence that the IES is large. This is done using a model in which all agents have identical preferences and the same access to asset markets. We...