Using a pure-exchange overlapping generations model in which money is valued because of a legal restriction, we show the following: a) a benevolent government may make some use of the inflation tax in conjunction with a lump-sum tax on the young but not if lump-sum taxes on the old are...

This paper develops a model in which two information frictions are embedded into an otherwise conventional neoclassical growth model; an adverse selection problem in the labor market and a costly state verification problem in the credit market. The former allows equilibrium unemployment to arise...

This paper represents a first attempt at a tractable analysis of how monetary policy influences the income distribution in an economy. It presents a monetary growth model in which inflation affects credit market efficiency, and via this link, influences capital accumulation, and the income...

In this paper, we assume away standard distributional and static-efficiency arguments for public health, and instead, seek a dynamic efficiency rationale. We study a lifecycle model wherein young agents make health investments to reduce mortality risk. We identify a welfare rationale for public...

This note studies a model in which heterogeneous income agents get a utility boost only when their consumption catches up with the Joneses'. The resulting utility function is non-concave. In this setup, participation in a fair consumption lottery has the potential to make some agents ex-ante...

This paper studies the possibility of endogenous fluctuations caused by activities of financial intermediaries. Risk-averse agents borrow from banks and invest in a risky two-state capital technology. The probability of success with the technology is assumed to be decreasing in the amount of...

Central banks typically supply intraday and overnight reserves at very different costs. The cost of intraday reserves is very close to zero, while the cost of overnight reserves is much higher. In this paper, we discuss the different roles played by reserves intraday and overnight and review...

Momentary equilibria are defined as points that satisfy agents’ optimality conditions and market clearing at any date. However, some dynamic sequences commencing from such points may not be considered valid equilibria because they asymptotically violate some economic restriction of the...

Dominant paradigms of fertility choice either ignore or assume small, unchanging costof fertility limitation. Inspired by the historical English experience that is contrary to suchassumptions,we modify the Beckerian paradigm to incorporate costly, societal influence oncontraception. In the model...

A classic result in dynamic public economics states that there is no welfare rationale for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pensions in a dynamically-efficient neoclassical economy with exogenous labor supply. Parenthetically, a welfare justification for PAYG pensions exists if the economy is dynamically...