If households face uninsurable idiosyncratic earnings risk, theory predicts that re- distributive tax and transfer systems have both an insurance and a distortionary effect. Exploiting the substantial variation of tax and transfer systems across US states and over time we investigate the...

We analytically show that a common across rich/poor individuals Stone-Geary utility function with subsistence consumption in the context of a simple two-asset portfolio-choice model is capable of qualitatively explaining: (i) the higher saving rates of the rich, (ii) the higher fraction of...

Raising children demands a considerable amount of parental time, obliging working parents either to further reduce their leisure or to buy child-care services in the market. Parents may face additional opportunity costs upon deciding to participate in the labor market, but these are difficult to...

We introduce learning in a Brock-Mirman environment and study the effect of risk generated by the planner’s econometric activity on optimal consumption and investment. Here, learning introduces two sources of risk about future payoffs: structural uncertainty and uncertainty from the...

We build a tractable stylized model of external sovereign debt and endogenous international interest rates. In corrupt economies with rent-seeking groups stealing public resources, a politico-economic equilibrium is characterized by permanent Öscal impatience which leads to excessive issuing of...