The effect of changes in demographic structure on medium-run trends of key macroeconomic variables is estimated using a panel VAR of 21 OECD economies. The panel data variability assists the identification of direct effects of demographics, while the dynamic structure uncovers long-term effects....

We investigate the link between securitization and asset prices and show that increases in the growth rate of the volume of ABS issuance lead to a sizable decline in bond and equity premia. Furthermore, we show that in a model where banks select their portfolio of assets and create synthetic...

We document that fiscal multipliers depend on the age structure of the population. Using the variation in military spending and birth rates across U.S. states, we show that local fiscal multipliers increase with the share of young people in total population. We rationalize this fact with a...

Motivated by the failure of fiscal rules to eliminate deficit bias in the euro area, this paper analyzes an alternative policy regime in which each Member State government delegates at least one fiscal instrument to an independent authority with a mandate to avoid excessive debt. Other fiscal...

We propose a model that delivers endogenous variations in term spreads driven primarily by banks' portfolio decision and their appetite to bear the risk of maturity transformation. We first show that fluctuations of the future profitability of banks' portfolios affect their ability to cover for...

This paper studies the effects of delegating control of sovereign debt issuance to an independent authority in a monetary union where public spending decisions are decentralized. The model assumes that no policy makers are capable of commitment to a rule. However, consistent with Rogoff (1985)...

Demographic change and automation are two main structural trends shaping the macroeconomy in the next decades. We present a general equilibrium model with a tractable life-cycle structure that allows the investigation of the main transmission mechanisms by which demography and technology affect...

We document systematic and significant time variation in US lifecycle nondurable consumption profiles. Consumption profiles have consistently become flatter: intergenerational differences in consumption across age groups have decreased over time. Pooling data across different periods to identify...

Imperfect information aggregation in secondary credit markets has significant consequences for economic cycles. As banks put more weight on mark-to-market gains, they find it optimal to refrain from revealing information about adverse shocks. Consequently, default risk is mispriced, and loan...