I show the equivalence between a model of financial contagion and the widely-used threshold model of global cascades proposed by Watts (2002). The model financial network comprises banks that hold risky external assets as well as interbank assets. It turns out that there is no need to construct...

The question of how to stabilize financial systems has attracted considerable attention since the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. Recently, Beal et al. (gIndividual versus systemic risk and the regulator's dilemmah, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108: 12647-12652, 2011) demonstrated that higher...

This paper develops an overlapping generations model in which agents make educational and fertility decisions under life-cycle considerations, and retirement from work is distinguished from death. This model sheds light on a novel mechanism that links life expectancy, retirement, education,...

The problem of how to stabilize the financial system has attracted considerable attention since the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. Recently, Beal et al. (2011, gIndividual versus systemic risk and the regulatorfs dilemmah, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108: 12647-12652) demonstrated that higher...

We propose a two-country growth model of intermediate businessservices trade that captures the role of time zone differences. It is shown that a time-saving improvement in intermediate businessservices trade involving production in different time zones can have a permanent impact on productivity.