Many individuals simultaneously have significant credit card debt and money in the bank. The credit card debt puzzle is as follows: given high interest rates on credit cards and low rates on bank accounts, why not pay down debt? While some economists go to elaborate lengths to explain this, we...

Many individuals simultaneously have significant credit card debt and money in the bank. The credit card debt puzzle is: given high interest rates on credit cards and low rates on bank accounts, why not pay down debt? While some economists go to elaborate lengths to explain this, we argue it is...

Many individuals simultaneously have significant credit card debt and money in the bank. The credit card debt puzzle is: given high interest rates on credit cards and low rates on bank accounts, why not pay down debt? While some economists go to elaborate lengths to explain this, we argue it is...

Reverse mortgages allow elderly homeowners with limited income or financial wealth to borrow against their housing wealth without downsizing or selling out and becoming a renter. Although the proportion of elderly homeowners using reverse mortgages has been increasing rapidly, only 1.4 percent...

the model account for relevant properties of the data, but not very significantly. The biggest quantitative potential for search frictions in this setting appears to be in the dynamic implications they generate for inventories and markups in the retail sector. Assessment of this potential is in...

median household in the puzzle group.

There are two facts about the world that we take as given: First the "law of one price" is false -- one can find many different prices for what appears to be, beyond reasonable doubt, the same good. Second, prices are set in nominal terms and appear, beyond reasonable doubt, to be sticky -- some...