This paper investigates the long-term effects of initial labor market conditions by comparing cohorts who graduated from college before, during, and after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. We measure the overall welfare impact by examining not only labor market activities but also family...

This study investigates the long-term effects of initial labor market conditions by comparing cohorts who graduated from college before, during, and after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis in South Korea. We measure the overall welfare effect by examining their labor market activities, family...

The increasing dominance of finance starting in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the US and the UK, and somewhat later in other countries, was associated with two fundamental and structural processes generating the contradictions of this phase of development and finally the financial and economic...

We develop a tractable rational bubbles model with financial frictions, downward nominal wage rigidity, and the zero lower bound. The interaction of financial frictions and nominal rigidities leads to a "bubbly pecuniary externality," where competitive speculation in risky bubbly assets can...

During the Great Recession, the collapse of consumption across the US varied greatly but systematically with house-price declines. Our message is that household financial health matters for understanding this relationship. Two facts are essential for our finding: (1) the decline in house prices...

During the Great Recession, the collapse of consumption across the U.S. varied greatly but systematically with house-price declines. We find that financial distress among U.S. households amplified the sensitivity of consumption to house-price shocks. We uncover two essential facts: (1) the...

Household debt in many advanced economies has increased significantly since the 1980s and accelerated in the years prior to the Great Recession, resulting in an aggregate reduction of saving rates in the developed economies. Some of those economies are now deleveraging, which may be affecting...

This paper reconsiders the role of macroeconomic shocks and policies in determining the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery in the US. The Great Recession was mainly caused by a large demand shock and by the ZLB on the interest rate policy. In contrast with previous findings, the...

This paper analyzes the effects of the Great Recession on different generations. While older generations suffered the largest decline in wealth due to the collapse in asset prices, younger generations suffered the largest decline in labor income. Potentially, some households may have benefited...

How much did shocks to household credit supply reduce employment in the Great Recession? To answer this question, I provide a general foundation for shift-share credit supply shocks, which shows that they are useful for accounting, but direct estimates may be biased. Combining the shift-share...