We consider borrowers with the opportunity to raise funds from a competitive banking sector that shares information, and from an alternative hidden lender. The presence of the hidden lender restricts the contracts that can be obtained from the banking sector. In equilibrium some borrowers obtain...

This paper provides a comprehensive description of the financial environment for households and small businesses in a defined geographical region. It develops a new, functional approach to financial access surveys, which involves asking detailed questions about how respondents meet their...

Individuals and business owners engage in an increasingly complex array of financial decisions that are critical for their success and well-being. Yet a growing literature documents that in both developed and developing countries, a large fraction of the population is unprepared to make these...

We study the link between homeownership and entrepreneurship by exploiting the longitudinal dimension of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and constructing a detailed monthly-spell dataset that tracks individuals‟ job history and tenure choice, coupled with other time-varying...

In July 2000, the Taipei City Government launched an anti-poverty program, Taipei Family Development Accounts, which drew heavily on Sherraden¿s asset-based welfare theory, and was to provide matched savings accounts for low-income families in the City. This paper presents the ¿income to...

This paper solves an empirically parameterised model of life-cycle consumption which extends the precautionary savings models of Carroll (1997), and Deaton (1991), to allow for uncollaterized borrowing and default. In case households choose to default: (i) their access to credit markets is...

No behavior sits in a vacuum, and one behavior can greatly affect what happens next. We propose a conceptual frame within which a broad range of behavioral spillovers can be accounted for when applying behavioral science to policy challenges. We consider behaviors which take place sequentially...

We conduct a controlled lab-field experiment to directly test the short-run spillover effects of one-off financial incentives in health. We consider how incentives affect effort in a physical activity task – and then how they spillover to subsequent eating behaviour. Compared to a control...

Is it in politicians’ interest to focus policy on subjective well-being (SWB)? Many governments and international organisations have recently begun to measure progress at least partly in terms of the population’s SWB or “happiness”. This paper investigates the extent to which citizens...

Becker (1974) introduced to modern economics the idea that others care about what others think about them and derived many useful insights from this assumption. But he did not provide a very complete description of the general equilibrium of an economy in which people both demand respect from...