We provide a model with endogenous portfolios of secured and unsecured household debt. Secured debt is collateralized by owner-occupied housing whereas unsecured debt can be discharged according to bankruptcy regulations. We show that the calibrated model matches important quantitative...

The financial troubles of professional athletes are an ongoing topic of intrigue. In general, the zealousness brought to private equity schemes are a common factor in observed financial insolvency. Considering the behavioral attribute of self-confidence I propose a simple model which explains...

Both personal bankruptcy and redistributive taxes can insure households' consumption risk and both vary considerably across US states. We derive sufficient conditions under which more redistributive taxation makes bankruptcy exemptions less attractive both for the intratemporal insurance and for...

An important issue in the analysis of cross-sectional dependence which has received renewed interest in the past few years is the need for a better understanding of the extent and nature of such cross dependencies. In this paper we focus on measures of cross-sectional dependence and how such...

The paper links finance theory to labor economics and political economy in the context of migration and immigration policy. Most research treating the impact of immigration has focused on the consequences for employees as measured by wages, earnings, and employment. Less is known about the...

Do wealth shocks affect the health of the elderly in developed countries? The economic literature is skeptical about such effects which have so far only been found for poor retirees in poor countries. In this paper I show that wealth shocks also matter for the health of wealthy retirees in the...

This paper proposes a matching model that distinguishes between job creation by existing firms and job creation by firm entrants. The paper argues that vacancy posting and job destruction on the extensive margin, i.e. from firms that enter and exit the labour market, represents a viable...

We use plant output and input prices to decompose the profit margin into four parts: productivity, demand shocks, mark-ups and input costs. We find that each of these market fundamentals are important in explaining plant exit. We then use variation across sectors in tariff changes after the...

Starting from the observation that all firms in Ireland (foreign and domestic in manufacturing and services industries) were hit by the crisis, the paper asks whether there is a difference in the behaviour of foreign and domestic firms. One hypothesis is that foreign multinationals are less...

A rich but tractable variant of the Burdett-Mortensen model of wage setting behavior is formulated and a dynamic market equilibrium solution to the model is defined and characterized. In the model, firms cannot commit to wage contracts. Instead, the Markov perfect equilibrium to the wage setting...