Empirical studies show that tradable consumption goods are more expensive in rich countries. This paper proposes a simple yet novel explanation for this apparent failure of the law of one price: Consumers' utility from tradable goods depends on their consumption of complementary goods and...

Recent empirical work finds that government spending shocks can cause aggregate consumption to increase. This paper builds on the framework of imperfect information in Lucas (1972) and Lorenzoni (2009) to show how government spending can stimulate consumption. Owners of firms targeted by an...

A common presumption in macroeconomics and development economics is that increased growth in the aggregate enhances welfare for everyone in the economy. I show that instead, if the underlying growth is a productivity increase in the sector consumed primarily by one group, the welfare of a second...