In this paper we develop a neoclassical growth model that aggregates different types of labor skills from strict complementarity to perfect substitution. After having derived general balanced growth conditions and developed explicit growth paths for capital and aggregate labor force, the model...

This paper analyses two types of models: 1. Those based on assumptions of monetary and financial market equilibrium disturbance in line with mainstream thinking that there is self-regulating market, the units would have rational expectations, and the crisis would be a temporary phenomenon caused...

The life-cycle consumption and permanent income hypotheses predict that if workers face greater likelihood of unemployment in the future that lowers expected future income, they will save more today. In this paper, we test this hypothesis by looking at the expenditure response of workers to the...

Housing is the greatest asset held by most households, and it is an important determinant of their financing and consumption decisions. Despite the fact that measuring housing wealth is crucial for understanding households' economic behavior, this indicator is currently unavailable in Mexico due...

This paper develops a comprehensive measure of household economic well-being. The "sustainable consumption" concept accounts for income, assets, debt, transfer payments, and asset returns to estimate a consumption path that balances resources with expenditure over a household's lifetime....

Germany has had a large and persistent current account surplus for the past almost two decades. We review different theoretical explanations of this phenomenon and conclude from the empirical litera-ture that Germany's external surplus reflects an imbalance that is a threat to macroeconomic...

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...

This work is based on a new Keynesian theoretical model for an advanced economy, which incorporates overlapping generations to analyze a channel through which fluctuations in household financial wealth influence aggregate demand. The optimal monetary policy, corresponding to that of a central...

This paper studies how foreign investors' concerns about model misspecification affect sovereign bond spreads. We develop a general equilibrium model of sovereign debt with endogenous default wherein investors fear that the probability model of the underlying state of the borrowing economy is...

Credit limit variability is a crucial aspect of the consumption, savings, and debt decisions of households in the United States. Using a large panel, this paper first demonstrates that individuals gain and lose access to credit frequently and often have their credit limits reduced unexpectedly....