Microeconomic studies keep reporting that the intertemporal substitution in consumption and the Frisch elasticity of aggregate labor supply have significantly lower values than macroeconomic models find consistent with the dynamics of aggregate variables. The paper argues that in the U.S. such...

The U.S. economy isn' t recovering from the deep Great Recession of 2008–2009 with the strength predicted by models that incorporate a variety of shocks and frictions in the basic analytical framework of the neoclassical growth model. It has been argued that the counterfactual predictions...

Argentina’s GDP increased 30% between 2002 and 2005, prompting optimistic assessments that the country had finally left behind its secular stagnation. However, this strong performance followed a sharp decline in economic activity and therefore could be the manifestation of a bounce-back effect...

In an economy in which debt obligations are fixed in nominal terms, but there are otherwise no nominal rigidities, a monetary policy that targets inflation inefficiently concentrates risk, tending to increase the financial distress that accompanies adverse real shocks. Nominal-income targeting...

The recent U.S. consumption boom and the subsequent surge in mortgage defaults have been linked to mortgage equity withdrawals (MEWs). MEWs are correlated with covariates consistent with a permanent income framework augmented for credit-constraints. Nevertheless, many households are financially...

Since the 1970s, the poverty rate has remained largely unchanged among Hispanics but has declined among non-Hispanic whites and blacks, particularly before the onset of the recent recession. The influx of large numbers of immigrants partially explains why poverty rates have not fallen over time...

This paper argues that the solution to a dynamic optimization problem of consumption and labor under finite information-processing capacity can simultaneously explain the intertemporal and intratemporal labor wedges. It presents a partial equilibrium model, where a representative risk adverse...

The labor wedge accounts for a large fraction of business cycle fluctuations. This paper uses a search and matching model to decompose the labor wedge into three classes of labor market frictions and evaluate their role. We find that frictions to job destruction and bargaining commonly...

The low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program has developed over two million rental homes for low-income households since 1986. The perception of deterioration in school quality has been a main reason for community opposition to LIHTC projects in middle-and upper-income areas. In this paper,...

Remittances have been promoted as a development tool because they can raise incomes and reduce poverty rates in developing countries. Remittances may also promote development by providing funds that recipients can spend on education or health care or invest in entrepreneurial activities. From a...