The potential for economic agents to minimize risk through diversification is central to the study of finance. This dissertation analyzes the ability to diversify risks in an international context by studying risk sharing opportunities on two dimensions, consumption growth and portfolio wealth....

Firms and investors often operate in environments with market imperfections and agency frictions. It is common wisdom that the effects of these microeconomic frictions are amplifed or mitigated by the quality of economic institutions in a country. Yet little is known about the precise channels...

I study several policy instruments for carbon mitigation with a focus on subsidies for renewable energies, emission taxes and emission allowances. In Chapter 1, I analyze the optimal design and the welfare implications of two policies consisting of an emission tax for conventional fossil-fuel...

Aging populations have altered saving and investment patterns in many developed and emerging market economies. The structural changes that have occurred have important implications for financial stability and for the conduct of monetary policy. As assets and borrowing shifted from banks to...

This paper uses a Spanish panel of tax returns and another on household expenditure during the period 1985-1991 to examine the incidence of the introduction in 1988 of tax incentives to retirement savings on contributions to pension funds and on savings. We first identify the population cohorts...