bankruptcy filing months later. While we possess reasonably sophisticated models of household default, we do not possess a comparably sophisticated model about the timing of a delinquent household's filing decision. The purpose of this project is to provide such a model and use it understand the...

We propose a theory of firm dynamics in which workers have ideas for new projects that can be sold in a market to existing firms or, at a cost, implemented in new firms: spin-offs. Workers have private information about the quality of their ideas. Because of an adverse selection problem, workers...

What implications does land supply elasticity have for land price appreciation in cities that are experiencing population or productivity growth? In the setting of a circular city model with a production externality, we show that residential land prices grow faster in the city that can expand...

gain on housing leads to offsetting movements in downpayments, with little or no change in equilibrium default frequency.

Why are taxes higher in Europe than in the US? We propose that it stems from lesser competition across jurisdictions within Europe. We embed self-interested governments and tax competition into a standard neoclassical growth model with public goods. While greater jurisdictional competition...

future (so-called debt dilution problem).

Under current law, participants in (college) student loan program must repay their loan in full regardless of whether they complete college. Dropout rate among college students from low-income background is anywhere between 33 to 50 percent. The combination of lack of family resources,...

We construct a quantitative equilibrium model that accounts for the salient features of the US housing market, namely, the homeownership rate, the average foreclosure rate prior to the crisis and the distribution of home-equity ratios across homeowners. Given this steady state, we examine the...

We propose a theory of unsecured consumer credit where: (i) borrowers have the legal option to default; (ii) defaulters are not exogenously excluded from future borrowing; (iii) there is free entry of lenders; and (iv) lenders cannot collude to punish defaulters. In our framework, limited credit...

An important source of inefficiency in long-term debt contracts is the debt dilution problem, wherein a borrower ignores the adverse impact of new borrowing on the market value of outstanding debt and, therefore, borrows too much and defaults too frequently. A commonly proposed remedy to the...