Limited attention may play a role in explaining the inability to reach savings goals (Karlan, McConnell, Mullainathan and Zinman, forthcoming). Presuming that attention is a scarce resource and important for the pursuit of saving plans, limits to attention in inter-temporal consumption and...

The presentation analyzes whether the success of persuasive messages depends on an individual's behavioral bias: If at the onset of a savings period saving goals are chosen with over- or underconfidence, i.e. individuals over- or underestimate their savings potential, individuals might save too...

This paper studies an environment with two infinitely-lived altruistic agents whose only sources of income are a risk-free return on savings and voluntary transfers from the other player. We study the Markov-perfect equilibrium of a continuous-game (differential game). On the technical side, we...

This paper studies the structure and dynamics of consumption and consumption growth inequality. The theoretical framework is a heterogeneous agent model with stochastic labor endowments, where the group mean consumption serves as consumption externality. The main finding is that households'...

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on labor income and savings in a standard two-period life-cycle model with endogenous leisure demands in both periods and non-insurable income risks. Households are subject to skill shocks in both periods of the life-cycle. We allow for completely general...

We develop an insurance market model where consumers (i) exhibit present-biased preferences, and (ii) suffer from physical pain in case of (health-) damage. They can exert preventive effort to reduce the probability of damage. Sophisticated consumers correctly anticipate their effort and...

Many empirical studies on intertemporal choice report preference reversals in the sense that a preference between a small reward to be received soon and a larger reward to be received later reverses as both rewards are equally delayed. Such preference reversals are commonly interpreted as...

Most industrialized countries provide a subsistence level consumption floor in old age, usually in the form of means-tested benefits or income supplements. The availability of such means-tested payments creates an incentive to optimally cash out (occupational) pension wealth for low and middle...

This paper examines the pattern of international capital flows in a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium heterogeneous agent model with financial frictions and idiosyncratic entrepreneurial risk. Countries differ only with respect to the tightness of constraints on the domestic credit market....

Consistent with facts for a cross-section of OECD countries, I document that the labor force participation rate of West German mothers with children aged zero to two exceeds the corresponding child care enrollment rate whereas the opposite is true for mothers with children aged three to...