Saving rates have fallen steadily in the U.S. since the 1970s. The literature has proposed numerous possible explanations for the decrease including increases in governmental insurance, changes in the distribution of income, and increases in annuitized wealth. Analysis of all three explanations...

The present paper constructs possible baseline economies with an aging population to analyze Social Security reform plans, using an overlapping generations (OLG) model with heterogeneous households. In this model, households receive idiosyncratic working ability shocks and mortality shocks....

We consider how efficient markets adopt technologies that reduce dependence on volatile factors such as oil. We find a relationship between volatility and technology overlap: new technology entry rate exceeds old technology exit rate under sufficient uncertainty. From this follows that efficient...

This paper explores equilibrium theory of wealth accumulation and wealth inequality when entrepreneurs have collateral constraints and are subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks. The model is an extension of Kiyotaki-Moore's setting to incorporate shocks and, at the same time, is a version...

We use household survey data to construct a direct measure of absolute risk aversion based on the maximum price a consumer is willing to pay to buy a risky security. We relate this measure to consumers' endowment and attributes and to measures of background risk and liquidity constraints. We...

Abstract: Focusing on observable default risk's role in loan terms and the subsequent consequences for household behavior, this paper shows that lenders increasingly used risk-based pricing of interest rates in consumer loan markets during the mid-1990s. It tests three resulting predictions....

After the fall in fertility during the Demographic Transition, many developed countries experienced a baby bust, followed by the Baby Boom and subsequently a return to low fertility. Received wisdom from the Demography literature links these large fluctuations in fertility to the series of...