Life expectancy around the world has increased substantially since 1970. In contrast, consumption per capita has fallen in some countries, remained stagnant, or sharply increased in others. What are the welfare gains of the systematic increase in life expectancy around the world? How does a...

Theoretical studies have shown that under unorthodox assumptions on preferences and production technologies, collateral constraints can act as a powerful amplification and propagation mechanism of exogenous shocks. We investigate whether or not this result holds under more standard assumptions....

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of collateral constraints as a transmission mechanism of monetary shocks. We do this by introducing money in the heterogeneous-agent real economy of Kiyotaki and Moore (1997). Money enters in a cash-in-advance constraint and is injected via...

This paper studies fertility decisions in an Aiyagari-Huggett economy extended to include endogenous fertility. The challenge is to explain both why fertility decreases with income, and why there is intergenerational persistence of inequality. The model features non-isoelastic altruism,...

Most education around the globe is public. Moreover, invest rates in education as well as schooling attainment differ substantially across countries. We contruct a general equilibrium life-cycle model that is consistent with these facts. We provide simple analytical solutions for the optimal...

We document various limitations of the expected utility model for the study of health and longevity. The model assumes individuals are indifferent between early and late resolution of uncertainty. This assumption gives rise to predictions regarding the economic value of life that are...

A large body of empirical research indicates that countries with low policy-induced trade barriers tend to enjoy rapid growth, ceteris paribus. In contrast, alternative theoretical models suggest that the relationship between trade barriers and growth may be contingent on the level of...

Theoretical studies have shown that under unorthodox assumptions on preference and production technologies, collateral constraints can act as a powerful amplification and propagation mechanism of exogenous shocks. We investigate whether or not this result holds under more standard assumptions....

This thesis deals with macroeconomic dynamics. In chapter 1, I study a one-sector growth model withendogenous discount rate of the sort proposed by citet{1}. I extendthe model into a heterogeneous agents model with respect to initialwealth, and investigate whether the wealthdistribution may...