This paper provides a unified theory of the economic and demographic transition. Individualsmake optimal decisions about fertility, education of their children and the type and intensity ofthe investments in their own education. These decisions are affected by different dimensionsof mortality...

This paper introduces endogenous longevity risk in an otherwisestandard overlapping generations model with capital. In the model, an agent mayincrease the length of her old age by incurring investments in her own health fundedfrom her wage income. Such private health investments are more...

This paper analyzes the effect of firing costs on aggregate productivity growth. For thispurpose, a model of endogenous growth through selection and imitation is developed. It isconsistent with recent evidence on firm dynamics and on the importance of reallocation forproductivity growth...

This paper considers the implications of the permanent/transitory decomposition of shocksfor identification of structural models in the general case where the model might contain morethan one permanent structural shock. It provides a simple and intuitive generalization of theinfluential work of...

BEA’s national economic statistics provide a comprehensive view of U.S. production, consumption, investment, exports and imports, and income and saving. These statistics are best known by summary measures such as gross domestic product (GDP), corporate profits, personal income and spending,...

This study finds that a model with internal habit memory allowsto simultaneously explain a series of business cycle and asset pricing puzzles. Compared to the literature, the equity premium puzzle can be resolved in a model with endogenous labor, without giving rise to excessive risk free rate...

We study the effects of demographic shocks and changes in the pension system on themacroeconomic performance of an advanced small open economy. An overlappinggenerationsmodel is constructed which includes a realistic description of the mortalityprocess. Individual agents choose their optimal...

The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order wherebythe landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linked this transformation to the contrast in values between a...

This paper explores the optimal risk sharing arrangement between generations in an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth. We allow for nonseparable preferences, paying particular attention to the risk aversion of the old as well as overall “life-cycle” risk aversion. We provide...

Skill-biased technical change is usually interpreted in terms of the efficiency parameters ofskilled and unskilled labor. This implies that the relative productivity of skilled workerschanges proportionally in all tasks. In contrast, we argue that technical changes also affectthe curvature of...