We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model for the positive and normative analysis of macroprudential policies. Optimizing financial intermediaries allocate their scarce net worth together with funds raised from saving households across two lending activities, mortgage and corporate lending....

The housing boom that preceded the Great Recession was due to an increase in credit supply driven by looser lending constraints in the mortgage market. This view on the fundamental drivers of the boom is consistent with four empirical observations: the unprecedented rise in home prices and...

We exploit rules of class formation to identify the causal effect of increasing the number of immigrants in a classroom on natives test scores, keeping class size constant (Pure Composition Effect). We explain why this is a relevant policy parameter although it has been neglected so far. We show...

Import competition from China is pervasive in the sense that for many good categories, the competitive environment that US firms face in these markets is strongly driven by the prices of Chinese imports, and so is their pricing decision. This paper quantifies the effect of the...

We apply a regression discontinuity design to estimate the returns to being elected to parliament or to a municipal council. We present a bootstrap approach for measuring electoral closeness in any electoral system, and apply it to the Finnish proportional open list system. Getting elected to...

In the aftermath of the U.S. financial crisis, both a sharp drop in employment and a surge in corporate cash have been observed. In this paper, based on U.S. data, we document that the negative relationship between the corporate cash ratio and employment is systematic, both over time and across...

We examine whether structural transformation leads to a Kuznets curve. We present a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous workers, occupational self-selection and selective migration, and calibrate the model to survey data for Malawi. We show that structural transformation raises...

In recent years the growth pattern of most Southern European countries has been disturbed, as those countries are suffering from economic crises that go beyond the usual business cycle. In this paper, we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model of market and political power interactions that...

In this paper we trace the evolution of the lender of last resort doctrine—and its implementation—from the nineteenth century through the panic of 2008. We find that typically the most influential economists “fight the last war”: formulating policy guidelines that would have dealt...

To what extent do car buyers undervalue future fuel costs, and what does this imply for the effectiveness of alternative tax policies? To address both questions, we show it is crucial to account for consumer heterogeneity in mileage and other dimensions. We use detailed product-level data for a...