A comprehensive study of the personal income distribution (PID) in the USA is carried out. Principal characteristics of the PID in USA are established.A microeconomic model of the personal income distribution and evolution with time is developed. The model balances two processes - individual...

Using Bayesian methods, we estimate a nonlinear general equilibrium model where occasionally binding collateral constraints on housing wealth drive an asymmetry in the link between housing prices and economic activity. The estimated model shows that, as collateral constraints became slack during...

Today's dominant strain of macroeconomic models supposes that aggregate consumption can be understood by assuming the existence of a 'representative agent' whose behavior rationalizes observed outcomes. But representative agent models yield embarrassingly implausible (and empirically inaccurate)...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between increasing inequality and financial fragility in an agent based macroeconomic model. We analyse the effects of a non-linear relationship between wealth and consumption on the evolution of the economic system. Preliminary results...

We employ Champernowne distribution and iterative techniques to document inequality in industrializing Britain, which rose then fell. This result is robust to: (a) different definitions of inequality; (b) how the untaxed out-of-sample population is defined; (c) changes in the highest income class;...

This paper proposes an agent based macroeconomic model in which income distribution and wealth accumulation depend on the role that agents play in productive activities, that is capitalists or workers. In this framework, social class dynamics underlie the endogenous process of firm formation....

This paper addresses the often neglected question of how macroeconomic risk is shared across and within economies, and identifies reforms that could contribute towards achieving more desirable risksharing outcomes. For risk-sharing across countries, the paper discusses possibilities for...

In this paper we investigate the effect of standard and non-standard monetary policy implemented by the ECB on income inequality in Italy. We use for the first time the survey microdata on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC, Istat) in a repeated cross-section experiment to build measures of...