This paper develops an analytically tractable Bewley model of money demand to shed light on some important questions in monetary theory, such as the welfare cost of inflation. It is shown that when money is a vital form of liquidity to meet uncertain consumption needs, the welfare costs of...

In U.S. data 1981–2012, unsecured firm credit moves procyclically and tends to lead GDP, while secured firm credit is acyclical; similarly, shocks to unsecured firm credit explain a far larger fraction of output fluctuations than shocks to secured credit. In this paper we develop a tractable...

This paper offers a plausible explanation for the close link between oil prices and aggregate macroeconomic performance in the 1970s. Although this link has been well documented in the empirical literature, standard economic models are not able to replicate this link when actual oil prices are...

First-order approximation methods are a standard technique for analyzing the local dynamics of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Although for a wide class of DSGE models linear methods yield quite accurate solutions, some important economic issues such as portfolio choice and...

This paper constructs an endogenous growth model driven by self-fulfilling expectation shocks to explain the stylized fact that the average growth rate of GDP is related negatively to volatility and positively to capacity utilization. The implied welfare gain from further stabilizing the U.S....

This paper proposes a framework to study contagious stock bubbles in a multi-sector production economy with heterogeneous investment technologies. Due to financial frictions, stock bubbles arise endogenously that help inject additional liquidity. Due to financial linkages, the existence of...

In infinite horizon, heterogeneous-agent and incomplete-market models, the existence of an interior Ramsey steady state is often assumed instead of proven. This paper demonstrates the critical importance of proving the existence of the Ramsey steady state when conducting theoretical or numerical...

This paper provides a theory to explain the paradoxical features of the great housing boom in China — the persistently faster-than-GDP housing price growth, exceptionally high capital returns, and excessive vacancy rates. The expectation that high capital returns driven mainly by resource...

China's over 25% aggregate household saving rate is one of the highest in the world. One popular view attributes the high saving rate to fast-rising housing prices in China. However, cross-sectional data do not show a significant relationship between housing prices and household saving rates....

China is undergoing its long-awaited industrial revolution. There is no shortage of commentary and opinion on this dramatic period, but few have attempted to provide a coherent, in-depth, political economic framework that explains the fundamental mechanisms behind China's rapid...