This paper quantifies the welfare implications of the U.S. Social Security program during the Great Recession. We find that the average welfare losses due to the Great Recession for agents alive at the time of the shock are notably smaller in an economy with Social Security relative to an...

The downturn in economic activity in the U.S. that began in December 2007 (as determined by researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research) has been noticeably deeper and has already lasted considerably longer than the prior two recessions - those beginning in July 1990 and in March...

This paper uses the recent 2007-09 SCF panel to examine the influence of student loans on financial distress. Families with student loans in 2007 have higher levels of financial distress than families without such loans, and these families were more susceptible to transitions to financial...

Borrowing for education has increased rapidly in the past several decades, such that the majority of non-housing debt on US households' balance sheets is now student loan debt. This chapter analyzes the implications of student loan borrowing for later-life economic well-being, with a focus on...

This paper employs a calibrated model of the US economy to analyze the boom and bust in house prices as well as the shifts in the distribution of wealth during the years around the Great Recession. We replicate the dynamics of the housing market using shocks to aggregate income, the distribution...

Neoliberalism eviscerated the value-sharing ethos of the post-war Golden Age (1945-73), seeking to maintain social cohesion in civil society by 'managing the discontent of the losers'. This involved reconciling working households to the realities of the neoliberal labour market by means of...

We analyze the interactions between two different forms of unsecured credit and their implications for default behavior of young U.S. households. One type of credit mimics credit cards in the United States and the default option resembles a bankruptcy filing under Chapter 7; the other type of...

For mainstream economics, rigidities in the labour market are the primary determinants of high and persistent long-term unemployment rates, leading to the need to reform labour market institutions and make them more flexible. Flexible labour markets would not only help to smooth normal business...

The unemployed in the United States appear to allocate time to job search activities regardless of the stance of the economy. Drawing on the American Time Use Survey between 2003 and 2014, I document that the unemployed increase their search intensity only slightly if at all during recessions....