Cho, Cooley, and Kim (RED, 2015) (CCK) consider the welfare effects of removing multiplicative productivity shocks from real business cycle models. In a model that admits an analytical solution they argue convincingly that the positive welfare effect of removing uncertainty can be dominated by a...

The paper introduces a model of enterprise formation in a unionized economy with labor protection and wage bargaining. Enterprise formation is subject to future market risk and is shaped by labor market institutions in the post-entry stage. The predictions of the model are tested in...

The welfare cost of random consumption fluctuations is known from DeSantis (2007) to be increasing in the level of individual consumption risk in the economy. It is also known from Barillas et al. (2009) to increase if agents in the economy care about robustness to model misspecification. In...

The welfare cost of random consumption fluctuations is known from De Santis (2007) to be increasing in the level of individual consumption risk in the economy. It is also known from Barillas et al. (2009) to increase if agents in the economy care about robustness to model misspecification. In...

We use a DSGE model that generates endogenous movements in risk premia to examine the positive and normative implications of alternative monetary policy rules. As emphasized by the micro-finance literature, variation in risk arises because households face fixed costs of transferring cash across...

In a dynamically efficienct economy, can a government roll its debt forever and avoid the need to raise taxes? In a series of examples of production economies with zero growth, this paper shows that such Ponzi games may be infeasible even when the average rate of return on bonds is negative, and...

A pay-as-you-go (paygo) pension program may provide intergenerational pooling of risks to individuals' labor and capital income over the life cycle. By means of a model that provides illuminating closed form solutions, we demonstrate that the magnitude of the optimal paygo program and the nature...

Some authors have argued that multiplicative uncertainty may benefit society as the cautionary motive reduces the inflation bias. However, when there are non-atomistic wage setters, higher multiplicative uncertainty may raise the wage premium and unemployment and thus reduce welfare....