The paper analyzes the intermediation role of government under the assumption that it has an advantage over the private sector in collecting uncollateralized loan payments. It isshown that a government loan program may improve the welfare of all generations (including the current old generation)...

I examine the implementation of the Friedman rule under the assumption that age dependent lump sum transfers are possible and private intermediation is costly. This is done both in an infinitely lived agents model and in an overlapping generations model. I argue that in addition to a zero...

The paper investigates the role of the Intertemporal Elasticity of Substitution () in determining the equity premium. This is done in an overlapping generations economy populated by agents that live for 2 periods and maximize a Kihlstrom-Mirman expected utility function. The equity premium...

The ``Federalist financial revolution'' may have jump-started the U.S. economy into modern growth, but the Free Banking System (1837-1862) did not play a direct role in sustaining it. Despite lowering entry barriers and extending banking into developing regions, we find in county-level data that...

I examine the implementation of the Friedman rule under the assumption that age dependent lump sum transfers are possible and private intermediation is costly. This is done both in an infinitely lived agents model and in an overlapping generations model. I argue that in addition to a zero...