This paper studies stylized empirical facts regarding the effects of unexpected changes in aggregate macroeconomic fiscal policies on consumers that are allowed to differ depending on their individual characteristics. We use data from the Consumption Expenditure Survey (CEX) to estimate...

Ranking have become increasingly popular on markets for study programs, restaurants, wines, cars, etc. This paper analyses the welfare implication of such rankings. Consumers have to make a choice between two goods of unknown quality with exogenous presence or absence of an informative ranking....

There is a well-established positive correlation between life-satisfaction measures and income in individual level cross-sectional data. This paper attempts to provide some evidence on whether this correlation reflects causality running from money to happiness. I use industry wage differentials...

Prior to 1996, Israelis in collective communities (kibbutzim) shared the costs of raising children equally. This paper examines the impact of the privatization of kibbutzim on fertility behavior among members. We find that fertility declined by 6-15 percent following the shift to privatization....

This paper surveys the research in the past decade on imperfect information models of aggregate supply and the Phillips curve. This new work has emphasized that information is dispersed and disseminates slowly across a population of agents who strategically interact in their use of information....

Economists and social scientists have long been interested in intergenerational mobility, and documenting the persistence between parents and children’s outcomes has been an active area of research. However, since Gary Solon’s 1999 Chapter in the Handbook of Labor Economics, the literature...

In order to credibly "sell" legitimate children to their spouse, women must forego more attractive mating opportunities. This paper derives the implications of this observation for the pattern of matching in marriage markets, the dynamics of human capital accumulation, and the evolution of the...