The paper studies how high household leverage and crises can arise as a result of changes in the income distribution. Empirically, the periods 1920-1929 and 1983-2008 both exhibited a large increase in the income share of high-income households, a large increase in debt leverage of the...

The paper studies how high leverage and crises can arise as a result of changes in the income distribution. Empirically, the periods 1920-1929 and 1983-2007 both exhibited a large increase in the income share of the rich, a large increase in leverage for the remainder, and an eventual financial...

Recent proposals to reduce U.S. debt reveal large differences in their implied targets. These differences demonstrate the uncertainty surrounding future tax rates and long-run debt targets. We use a standard real business cycle model in which a Bayesian household learns about the state-dependent...

When monetary policy faces a zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on the nominal interest rate, determinacy is not guaranteed even if the Taylor principle is satisfied when the ZLB does not bind. This paper shows the boundary of the determinacy region imposes a clear tradeoff between the expected...

This article presents global solutions to standard New Keynesian models with a zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on the nominal interest rate. Rather than focus on specific sequences of shocks, we provide the solution for all combinations of technology and discount factor shocks and a thorough...

When monetary policy faces a zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on the nominal interest rate, a minimum state variable (MSV) solution may not exist even if the Taylor principle holds when the ZLB does not bind. This paper shows there is a clear tradeoff between the expected frequency and average...

Policy function iteration methods for solving and analyzing dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models are powerful from a theoretical and computational perspective. Despite obvious theoretical appeal, significant startup costs and a reliance on grid-based methods have limited the use of...

This paper studies the apparent contradiction between two strands of the literature on the effects of financial intermediation on economic activity. On the one hand, the empirical growth literature finds a positive effect of financial depth as measured by, for instance, private domestic credit...

This paper offers empirical evidence that real exchange rate volatility can have a significant impact on long-term rate of productivity growth, but the effect depends critically on a country’s level of financial development. For countries with relatively low levels of financial...