This paper quantifies the impact of borrowing constraints on consumption and earnings inequality in a life-cycle model with labor market search and endogenous human capital accumulation. I first show that following an unemployment spell, likely-constrained workers in the Survey of Income and...

We argue that a long-term low real rate environment can increase labor income inequality, amplify the emergence of the working rich, and reduce intergenerational mobility. We provide a simple model with endogenous human capital accumulation and credit constraints to demonstrate this causal link....

We propose a twin family model linking twins with their spouses and children to quantify the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in explaining the variance of socio-economic outcomes. Using data from the Danish Twins Registry and population registers, we test and relax the...

We study a directed search equilibrium with risk-averse workers who can search on the job and accumulate non-contingent assets under a borrowing limit. Search outcomes affect earnings and wealth accumulation. In turn, wealth and earnings affect search decisions by changing the optimal trade-off...

We explain the public's support for the minimum wage (MW) institution despite economists' warnings that the MW is a "blunt instrument" for redistribution. To do so we build a model in which workers are heterogeneous in ability, and the government engages in redistribution through the public...

What is the macroeconomic implications of inequality caused by technological progress? Using a standard over-lapping-generations model with skill heterogeneity and the Roy-type occupational choice, this paper examines how routine-biased technological change impacts income distribution and...

The recent literature has shown that income inequality is one of the main causes of borrowing and debt accumulation by working households. This paper explores the possibility that household indebtedness is an important cause of rising income inequality. If workers experience rising debt burdens,...

We present estimates of welfare by country for 2007 and 2014 using the methodology of Jones and Klenow (2016) which incorporates consumption, leisure, mortality and in equality, and we extend the methodology to include environmental externalities. During the period of the global financial crisis...

U.S. consumption has gone through steep ups and downs since 2000. We quantify the statistical impact of income, unemployment, house prices, credit scores, debt, financial assets, expectations, foreclosures, and inequality on county-level consumption growth for four subperiods: the "dot-com...

In the present paper through an empirical analysis it will be pointed out that e-shopping improves income distribution, while economic and financial crisis worsen it. Data are taken from Eurostat. The elaboration of these panel data is made feasible by means of the Eviews software package