We ask two questions related to how access to credit affects the nature of business cycles. First, does the standard theory of unsecured credit account for the high volatility and procyclicality of credit and the high volatility and countercyclicality of bankruptcy filings found in U.S. data?...

This article examines the impact of unemployment on social participation for Germany using the German Socio-Economic Panel. We find significant negative, robust and, for some activities, lasting effects of unemployment on social participation. Causality is established by focussing on plant...

In this study, the relation between consumer credit and real economic activity during the Great Moderation is studied in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. Our model economy is populated by two diff erent household types. Investors, who hold the economy’s capital stock, own the fi...

This paper analyzes the self-identification process and its role in motivation. We build a model of self-confidence where people have imperfect knowledge about their ability, which in most tasks is a complement to effort in determining performance. Higher self-confidence thus enhances...

This paper addresses the efficient management of natural resource revenues in capital-scarce developing economies. We depart from usual prescriptions based on the permanent income hypothesis, since for capital-scarce countries it is preferable to invest domestically. Since revenue streams are...

We reassess the empirical effect of income and employment on self-reported well-being. Our analysis makes use of a novel two-step estimation procedure that allows applying instrumental variable regressions with ordinal observable data. As suggested by the theory of incomplete markets, we...

Much evidence suggests that people are concerned with their relative consumption, i.e., their consumption in relation to the consumption of others. Yet, the social costs of conspicuous consumption have so far played little (or no) role in savings-based indicators of sustainable development. The...

Abstract Medical bankruptcy was at the heart of the health care reform debate. According to Himmelstein et al. (2009), 62.1 percent of bankruptcies in the United States in 2007 were due to medical reasons. At the same time over 15 percent of Americans had no health insurance. The 2010 health...

Much evidence suggests that people are concerned with their relative consumption, i.e., their consumption in relation to the consumption of others. Yet, the social costs of conspicuous consumption have so far played little (or no) role in savings-based indicators of sustainable development. The...

We reassess the empirical effects of income and employment on self-reported well-being. Our analysis makes use of a two-step estimation procedure that allows applying instrumental variable regressions with ordinal observable data. As suggested by the theory of incomplete markets, we...