Workers are embedded within a network of social relationships and can communicate through word-of-mouth. They can find a job either directly or through personal contacts. From this micro scenario, we derive an aggregate matching function that has the standard properties but fails to be...

We propose a theoretical framework for analyzing the problems associated to unilateral immigration policy in receiving countries and for evaluating the grounds for reform of international institutions governing immigration. We build a model with multiple destination countries and show that...

This paper presents a small-scale agent-based extension of the so-called neo-Kaleckian model. The aim is to investigate the emergence of Harrodian instability in decentralized market economies. We introduce a parsimonious microfoundation of investment decisions. Agents have heterogeneous...

We build an agent-based model to study how coordination failures, credit constraints and unequal access to investment opportunities affect inequality and aggregate income dynamics. The economy is populated by households who can invest in alternative projects associated with different...

We report experimental evidence on the effect of observability of actions on bank runs. We model depositors' decision-making in a sequential framework, with three depositors located at the nodes of a network. Depositors observe the other depositors' actions only if connected by the network....

On 10 January 2013 the ECB Governing Council decided “to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged” based on an assessment of a ‚contained‘ inflationary pressure and a weak economic activity, a contraction of real GDP in second and third quarter of 2012. Similar decisions have been taken...

Why did the country that borrowed the most industrialize first? Earlier research has viewed the explosion of debt in 18th century Britain as either detrimental, or as neutral for economic growth. In this paper, we argue instead that Britain's borrowing boom was beneficial. The massive issuance...

Die repressive Niedrigzinspolitik der EZB führt nach unseren Berechnungen zu geschätzten Zinsverlusten für die deutschen Sparer in einer Größenordnung von 70 Mrd. € pro Jahr. Die Zinsverluste sind höher als die finanziellen Belastungen durch Kapitalertragsteuer und Güterpreisinflation....

In this paper, we study maximizing long-run economic growth trade-off in monetary and fiscal policies in an endogenous growth model with transaction costs. We show that both monetary and fiscal policies are subject to threshold effects, a result that gives account of a number of recent empirical...

Credit risk has become an important factor driving government bond returns. We therefore introduce an asset pricing model which exploits information contained in both forward interest rates and forward CDS spreads. Our empirical analysis covers euro-zone countries with German government bonds as...