We develop a monopolistic-competition model of closed two-sector one-factor economy, where agents are (continuously) heterogeneous in their entrepreneurship abilities and choose between being employees or entrepreneurs. The sufficient conditions in terms of variable elasticity of substitution...

Natural advantages determine where agglomerations emerge. Also, efficiency and economies of scale determine how many agglomerations subsist and how they interact, forming complex urban hierarquies. Moreover, physical characteristics influence the way humans divide land into irregular parcels we...

The effects of inequality on economic growth depend on several factors. On one hand, they depend on the time horizon considered, on the initial level of income and on its initial distribution. But, on the other hand, as growth and inequality are also uneven across space, it also seems relevant...

We develop a model of a city populated by heterogeneous agents. Agents self-select into entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs set up firms which hire workers. We characterize the equilibrium matching between firms and workers, as well as the within-city assignment of agents to locations. We then...

This paper uses a simple model based on the board game Monopoly to analyze the drivers of house prices and wealth inequality. Simulations show that inequality generally builds up fast even if players have equal starting conditions and house prices are stable; rising house prices imply more...

We develop a general equilibrium model of earnings, income and wealth heterogeneity in continuous time. We extend existing analytical and numerical methods to solve the model. We calibrate the model to U.S. data and find that stochastic interest rates provide a mechanism to link earnings, income...

Differences in life expectancy between high and low socioeconomic groups are often large and have widened recently in many countries. Such longevity gaps affect the actuarial fairness and progressivity of public pension systems. However, behavioral responses to longevity and policy complicate...

Our very simple two agent New Keynesian model is highly stylised. It consists of an entrepreneur, who owns the economies' firms, consumes and saves, but does not work (or does not receive wage income), while the worker consumes and works, but cannot save. The allocation of the ability to save...

We investigate the cyclicity of the income distribution and quantify the relation with the business cycle. We apply standard turning point analysis and filtering techniques to a large microdataset of US individual incomes that combines survey data, tax records and national accounts. We document...

Reproducing the socio-spatial structure of cities is one of the challenges facing the standard urban economics model of Alonso, Muth, Mills (AMM model). In a widely cited paper, Jan K. Brueckner, Jacques-François Thisse and Yves Zenou (1999) asked "Why is central Paris rich and downtown Detroit...