We review how realistic frictions in information and/or rationality arrest general equilibrium (GE) feedbacks. In one specification, we maintain rational expectations but remove common knowledge of aggregate shocks. In another, we replace rational expectations with Level-k Thinking or a smooth...

Starting a firm with expansive potential is an option for educated and high-skilled workers. This option serves as an insurance against unemployment caused by labor market frictions and hence increases the incentives for education. We show within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs...

In this paper we propose a simple extension to the panel case of the covariate-augmented Dickey Fuller (CADF) test for unit roots developed in Hansen (1995). The extension we propose is based on a p-values combination approach that takes into account cross-section dependence. We show that the...

Using data across countries and over time we show that women are unhappier than men in unhappiness and negative affect equations, irrespective of the measure used - anxiety, depression, fearfulness, sadness, loneliness, anger - and they have more days with bad mental health and more restless...

We investigate cross-country fiscal policy spillovers through the integration of capital markets in a currency union and allow capital use in production to differ across countries. Following empirical evidence, we assume that production exhibits capital-skill complementarity. Using a...

Urban flooding poses danger to people and places. People can adapt to this risk by moving to safer areas or by investing in private self-protection. Places can offset some of the risk through urban planning and infrastructure investment. By constructing a global city data set that covers the...

Current policies directed at mitigating global warming appear unlikely to prevent temperatures from rising to levels that would trigger a precipitous increase in the costs of climate change. Various attempts at international cooperation to avoid this outcome have failed. Why is this problem so...

This paper surveys the decline in real interest rates in advanced and emerging economies over the past several decades, linking that process to a range of global factors that have operated with different force in different periods. The paper argues that estimates of long-run equilibrium real...