We implement a new approach for the identification of news shocks about future technology. In a VAR featuring a measure of aggregate technology and several forward-looking variables, we identify the news shock as the shock orthogonal to technology innovations that best explains future variation...

We propose an overlapping generations New Keynesian model in which a permanent (or very persistent) slump is possible without any self-correcting force to full employment. The trigger for the slump is a deleveraging shock, which creates an oversupply of savings. Other forces that work in the...

This paper addresses two critiques by Mian and Sufi (2015a, 2015b) that were released in response to the results documented in Adelino, Schoar and Severino (2015). We confirm that none of the results in our previous paper are affected by the issues put forward in these critiques; in particular...

We provide new facts on the debt dynamics leading up to the financial crisis of 2007. Earlier research suggests that distortions in the supply of mortgage credit, evidenced by a decoupling of credit flow from income growth, may have caused the rise in house prices and the subsequent housing...

We measure the causal effects of income and wealth on the demand for private-label products. Prior research suggests that these effects are large and, in particular, that private-label demand rises during recessions. Our empirical analysis is based on a comprehensive household-level transactions...

The recent global crisis has sparked interest in the relationship between income inequality, credit booms, and financial crises. Rajan (2010) and Kumhof and Rancière (2011) propose that rising inequality led to a credit boom and eventually to a financial crisis in the US in the first decade of...