We use a variety of different data sets from Thailand to study not only the extremes of micro and macro variables but also within-country flow of funds and labor migration. We develop a general equilibrium model that encompasses regional variation in the type of financial friction and calibrate...

The Flow of Funds table on federal funds and security repurchase agreements reports and attempts to balance the net lending/borrowing positions of various types of financial institutions. Prior to 2008, this table shows a huge unallocated discrepancy in the form of missing lending (i.e., reverse...

This paper uses the Flow of Funds accounts to assess the impact of a monetary policy shock on the borrowing and lending activities of different sectors of the economy. Our measures of contractionary monetary policy shocks have the following properties: (i) they are associated with a fall in...

In the household sector of the Flow of Funds Accounts, the difference between net acquisition of financial assets and net financial savings is equal to a statistical discrepancy which is often quite large relative to the reported changes in asset holdings. This means that the budget restrictions...

This paper estimates how overall consumer spending responds to changes in gasoline prices. It uses the differential impact across consumers of the sudden, large drop in gasoline prices in 2014 for identification. This estimation strategy is implemented using comprehensive, high-frequency...

How can retirement savings be increased? We explore a unique policy change in the context of the German pension system to study this question. As of 2004, the German pension authority started to send out annual letters providing detailed and comprehensible information about the pension system...

This paper estimates how the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) varies over the business cycle by exploiting exogenous variation in credit card borrowing limits. Ten years after an individual declares Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the record of the bankruptcy is removed from her credit report,...

Do robots raise or lower economic well-being? On the one hand, they raise output and bring more goods and services into reach. On the other hand, they eliminate jobs, shift investments away from machines that complement labor, lower wages, and immiserize workers who cannot compete. The net...

Four explanations for secular stagnation are distinguished: a rise in global saving, slow population growth that makes investment less attractive, averse trends in technology and productivity growth, and a decline in the relative price of investment goods. A long view from economic history is...