We propose a quantitative model of lending standards with two reasons for inefficient credit: lenders' moral hazard from deposit insurance or government guarantees, and imperfect information about the persistence of asset price growth, which generates incorrect but rational beliefs in the...

This paper analyzes fertility and consumption decisions when the costs of raising a child and parents' income are stochastic and correlated. We model the decision to have a child similarly to the decision to exercise an option in finance literature. We obtain several new results relative to...

Changes in country-specific aggregate volatility are positively correlated with the current account but negatively correlated with investment, output and credit flows. An International Real Business Cycle model with time-varying aggregate uncertainty, through a precautionary savings channel, can...

This paper studies the role of housing markets in explaining recent current account dynamics. I document a strong negative correlation, both across and within countries, between housing and current account dynamics. Then, in a quantitative two-country model without exchange rate driven...

I show that both before and after the Great Recession, housing dynamics strongly correlate with current account dynamics, both across and within countries. In a benchmark DSGE model of housing markets, housing price-to-rent ratios are counterfactual if the transmission channel from housing to...

This article discusses how macroeconomic arguments should shape the design of mortgage contracts. Mortgage recourse systems, by discouraging default, magnify the impact of nominal rigidities and cause deeper and more persistent recessions. Default mitigates liquidity traps because it...

This paper is a quantitative study of two frictions that generate banks' underinvestment in screening borrowers and, thus, overlending: 1) Limited liability, and 2) Banks failing to internalize that their credit decisions alter the pool of borrowers faced by other banks. The resulting lax...

This paper proposes a tractable way to incorporate lending standards ("credit qualification thresholds") into macro models of financial frictions. Banks can reject borrowers whose risk is above an endogenous threshold at which no lending rate sufficiently compensates banks for the borrowers’...