This paper investigates how financial market imperfections and the frequency of price adjustment interact. Based on new firm-level evidence for Germany, we document that financially constrained firms adjust prices more often than their unconstrained counterparts, both upwards and downwards. We...

We document a novel role of heterogeneity in price rigidity: It strongly amplifies the capacity of idiosyncratic shocks to drive aggregate fluctuations. Heterogeneity in price rigidity also completely changes the identity of sectors from which fluctuations originate. We show these results both...

In a VAR model of the US, the response of the relative price of durables to a monetary contraction is either flat or mildly positive. It significantly falls only if narrowly defined as the ratio between new house and nondurables prices. These findings survive three identification strategies and...

We assess empirically the micro-foundations of producers' sticky pricing behaviour. The intertemporal profit function considered accounts for various functional forms of menu costs. The focus is on the analysis of multiproduct plants, and the menu costs therefore also allow for economies of...

Economists have long suspected that firm-to-firm relationships might increase price rigidity due to the use of explicit or implicit fixed-price contracts. Using transaction-level import data from the U.S. Census, I study the responsiveness of prices to exchange rate changes and show that prices...

We formulate a two-period life-cycle model of saving, labor supply, and human capital investments when individuals differ in ability and initial wealth. Borrowing constraints prevent individuals to optimally smooth consumption over the life-cycle and to optimally invest in human capital. We show...

Altruistic parents, who differ in income, make financial transfers to their children, who differ in ability. The children invest in post-compulsory education, subject to an endogenous credit constraint, and taking policy as given. There are two policy tools: a subsidy to those who participate in...

Using Dutch data we empirically investigate how financing and innovation vary across firm characteristics. We find that when firms face financial constraints, debt financing and innovation choices are not independent of firm characteristics, and R&D slows down. In the absence of financial...

The tax bias in favour of debt finance under the corporate income tax means that corporate debt ratios exceed the socially optimal level. This creates a rationale for thin-capitalization rules limiting the amount of debt that qualifies for interest deductibility. This paper sets up a model of...

We present an analysis of the share of public ownership in the product market in the OECD countries from 1974 to 2007. Despite much has been said on the broad topic of reforms and regulation, a sector-specific insight is missing. We replicate the analysis of Galasso (2014) by sector of activity...