In this paper we investigate the effects of government budget deficit restrictions in a finite horizon model with imperfect consumer credit market. When financial markets are perfect anonymous lump-sum taxes are sufficient to achieve irrelevance of government budget deficit restrictions in the...

This paper explores the extent to which markets constrain intertemporal preferences. First, we show that without transaction costs, agents are immune to exploitation in competitive markets. In particular, a sequence of trades leaving any market participant strictly worse off (termed a money...

This paper studies equilibrium portfolios in the standard neoclassical growth model under uncertainty with heterogeneous agents and dynamically complete markets. Preferences are purposely restricted to be quasi-homothetic. The main source of heterogeneity across agents is due to different...

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...