What model features and calibration strategies yield a large average marginal propensity to consume (MPC) in heterogeneous agent models? Through a systematic investigation of models with different preferences, dimensions of ex-ante heterogeneity, income processes and asset structure, we show...

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to examine the role of information technology when intermediaries facilitate the origination and distribution of assets given information asymmetry. Information technology measures the informativeness of asset-quality signals received by...

I introduce money into an incomplete markets model with heterogeneous agents and uninsurable income risk. I show that the model exhibits both non-monetary and monetary equilibria, with the latter existing when income risk is sufficiently high. Using numerical methods, I characterize the...

We study optimal policy when heterogeneous markups reflect compensation for uninsurable persistent idiosyncratic risk. The optimal labor tax keep rate equals (1) the aggregate markup times (2) workers' consumption share divided by their Pareto weight. Markups correctly capture the private cost...

Recent empirical evidence documents that different individuals earn systematically different rates of return, even after controlling for portfolio composition. We propose a general equilibrium theory of residual heterogeneity in rates of return on wealth by embedding a financial market with...

We develop a dynamic macroeconomic model in which the secular decline in real interest rates arises endogenously from rising wealth inequality. Challenging the standard "safe asset shortage" hypothesis, the model shows how falling real rates can coexist with a stable safe asset ratio--closely...

This paper characterizes the allocations that emerge in general equilibrium economies populated by households with preferences of the additive random utility type that make discrete consumption, employment or spatial decisions. We start with a complete markets economy where households can trade...

We provide a price theory for incomplete markets that extends the traditional Walrasian analysis. We derive formulas expressing the consumption response to current and future changes in interest rates and income. Our analysis provides a natural decomposition of these responses into substitution...

We elicited over a million stated preference choices over 126 dimensions or "aspects" of well-being from a sample of 3,358 respondents on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Our surveys also collected self-reported well-being (SWB) questions about respondents' current levels of the aspects of...

Concerns over the excessive use of mobile phones, especially among youths and young adults, are growing. We present, to our knowledge, the first estimates of both behavioral spillover and contextual peer effects, as well as the first comprehensive evidence of how own and peers' mobile app usage...