We study how the use of judgement or add-factors in macroeconomic forecasting may disturb the set of equilibrium outcomes when agents learn using recursive methods. We isolate conditions under which "exuberance equilibria" exist in standard macroeconomic environments. These equilibria may...

It is commonly thought that a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is so, one might ask how much data is a piece of advice worth. In other words, if advice is important than we should be able to measure it in two ways: How much data would a rational decision maker be willing to give up in...

In this paper we build on the Cunha, Heckman and Navarro (2005) and show that labor earnings risk has increased considerably over time and it has increased more for lower skill groups than higher skill groups

Idiosyncratic household income is typically assumed to consist of several components. While the total income is observed and is often modelled as an integrated moving average process, individual components are not observed directly. In the literature, econometricians typically assume that...

We examine the possibility of a Pareto-improving pay-as-you-go social security system, using an ex-ante welfare criterion. Our objective is to identify the conditions under which a suitably designed pay-as-you-go social security system is welfare improving, when markets are complete and...

This paper studies the optimal trade-off between commitment and flexibility in an intertemporal consumption/savings choice model. Individuals expect to receive relevant information regarding their own situation and tastes - generating a value for flexibility - but also expect to suffer from...

In this paper, we study a household’s optimal life-cycle housing choices by calibrating a model with uninsurable labor income and house price risks. In our setup, the household not only decides between renting and owning a house, but also chooses the size of its house. Borrowing is...

In this paper, we study the decision to purchase life insurance as part of a lifecycle plan of consumption, savings, and labor supply. Households are subject to idiosyncratic risk in their labor productivity as well as the composition and size of their family, and respond by accumulating...