The stochastic process for earnings is the key element of incomplete markets models in modern quantitative macroeconomics. We show that a simple modification of the canonical process used in the literature leads to a dramatic improvement in the measurement of earnings dynamics in administrative...

We propose a new source of cross-sectional variation that may identify causal impacts of government spending on the economy. We use the fact that a large number of federal spending programs depend on local population levels. Every ten years, the Census provides a count of local populations....

In a model with multiple Pareto-ranked equilibria we add trade in assets that pay based on the realization of a sunspot. Asset trading restricts the equilibrium set in a way that raises welfare by eliminating equilibria with a high likelihood of disasters. When the probability of a disaster is...

We document how a plant-specific shock to investment opportunities at one plant of a firm ("treated plant") spills over to other plants of the same firm--but only if the firm is financially constrained. While the shock triggers an increase in investment and employment at the treated plant, this...