This paper makes two contributions. First, we examine the macroeconomic implications of Puerto Rico's Fiscal Plan that was certified in March 2017 for fiscal years 2017-18 to 2026-27. Second, we perform a Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) that incorporates the expected macroeconomic dynamics...

This paper provides an explanation for situations in which the state variables describing the economy do not change, but aggregate consumption experiences significant changes. We present a theory of pseudo-wealth—individuals' perceived wealth that is derived from heterogeneous beliefs and...

This paper analyzes the role of real exchange rate (RER) policies in promoting economic development. Markets provide a suboptimal amount of investment in sectors characterized by learning spillovers. We show that a stable and competitive RER policy may correct for this externality and other...

Most macroeconomic crises, such as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, are associated with endogenous large changes in beliefs and understandings about the workings of the economy. Such downturns and crises are not consistent with the standard paradigm of a well-functioning competitive economy,...

The human capital construct is deep in the bones of economics and finds reference by many classical economists, even if they did not use the phrase. The term “human capital,” seldom mentioned in economics before the 1950s, increased starting in the 1960s and blossomed in the 1990s. The...

In an earlier paper, we showed that integrated individual accounts, allowing individuals to borrow against future pensions when they are unemployed, can be welfare increasing, because it allows increased inter-temporal consumption smoothing without attenuating incentives to search. Here, we...

We analyze the effects of changes in dividend tax policy using a life-cycle model of the firm, in which new firms first access equity markets, then grow internally, and finally pay dividends when they have reached steady state.In accordance with the traditional view of dividend taxation, new...

Previous work which showed that prices could aggregate perfectly the diverse information of traders depended critically on the assumption that all agents had constant absolute risk utility. We show that either all agents must have constant absolute risk aversion utility, or all must have...

This paper develops a simple model of macroeconomic behavior which incorporates the impact of financial market quot;imperfections,quot; such as those generated by asymmetric information in financial markets. These information asymmetries may lead to breakdowns in markets, like that for equity,...

This paper develops the basic analytics of moral hazard, for the two-outcome case where either a fixed damage accident occurs or it does not. The analysis focuses on the relationship between the insurance premium paid and the insurance benefits received in the event of an accident, and is...