We examine financial intermediation when banks can offer deposit or loan contracts contingent on macroeconomic shocks. We show that the risk allocation is efficient if there is no workout of banking crises. In this case, banks will shift part of the risk to depositors. In contrast, under a...

What is the right balance among policy interventions in order to ensure economic growth over the long run when an epidemic causes heavy mortality among young adults? We argue that, in general, policies to combat the disease and promote education must be concentrated, in certain ways, on some...

The AIDS epidemic threatens Kenya with a long wave of premature adult mortality, and thus with an enduring setback to the formation of human capital and economic growth. To investigate this possibility, the authors develop a model with three overlapping generations, calibrate it to the...