During the last three decades government debt has increased in most developed countries. During the same period we have also observed a significant liberalization of international financial markets. We propose a multi-country model with incomplete markets and show that governments may choose...

This article describes the current state of economic theory intended to explain the unequal distribution of wealth among U.S. households. The models reviewed are heterogeneous agent versions of standard neoclassical growth models with uninsurable idiosyncratic shocks to earnings. The models...

This article describes some facts about financial inequality in the United States that a good theory of inequality must be able to explain. These include the facts that labor earnings, income, and wealth are all unequally distributed among U.S. households, but the distributions are significantly...

We document the cyclical properties of US firms' financial flows and show that equity payout is procyclical and debt payout is countercyclical. We then develop a model with debt and equity financing to explore how the dynamics of real and financial variables are affected by "financial shocks."...

We study a labour market equilibrium model in which firms sign optimal long-term contracts with workers. Firms that are financially constrained offer an increasing wage profile: they pay lower wages today in exchange for higher future wages once they become unconstrained. Because constrained...

We study the optimal monetary policy in a two-country open-economy model under two monetary arrangements: (a) multiple currencies controlled by independent policy makers; (b) common currencies with a centralized policy maker.Our findings suggest that: (i) monetary policy competition leads to...

Recent studies have shown that the dynamics of firms (growth, job reallocation, and exit) are negatively correlated with the initial size of the firm and its age. In this paper we analyze whether financial factors, in addition to technological differences, are important in generating these...

We study a labour market equilibrium model in which firms sign optimal long-term contracts with workers. Firms that are financially constrained offer an increasing wage profile: they pay lower wages today in exchange for higher future wages once they become unconstrained. Because constrained...