We report that on any given day the number of inmates released from incarceration significantly affects the number of offenses committed this day, and we name this as first-day recidivism. Our estimates of this novel approach to study early recidivism are robust to a variety of alternative model...

Excessive real estate credit is a major threat to financial stability. However, risk arising from household credit is difficult to monitor at an aggregate level. As household liquidity constraints play a key role, we propose a new indicator for the analysis of mortgage lending restrictions: The...

We study the effects of permanent and temporary income shocks on precautionary saving and investment in a "store-or-sow" model of growth. High volatility of permanent shocks results in high precautionary saving in the safe asset and low investment, or a "volatility trap." Namely, big savers...

The staff report for the 2007 Article IV Consultation on Bangladesh highlights recent developments and policy discussions. Bangladesh’s growth outlook and external position remain robust, but inflation has picked up. Overall macroeconomic stability has been maintained, but fiscal...

Consumption theory predicts that the cost of liquidity determines spending responses to a stimulus. We test this hypothesis directly using administrative records of individual-level loan and deposit accounts in combination with a Danish fiscal stimulus reform transforming illiquid pension wealth...

Using a unique panel data set from a UK credit card company, we analyze the interest rate sensitivity of subprime credit card borrowers. In addition to all individual transactions and loan terms, we also have access to details of a randomized interest rate experiment conducted by the lender on...

We study barriers to labor mobility using panel data on gross region-to-region migration flows in Russia for 1995-2010. We find that barriers that hindered internal migration in 1990s have been generally eliminated by the end of 2000s. In 1990s many poor Russian regions were in poverty traps:...

This paper investigates whether investment spending of firms is sensitive to the availability of internal funds.Imperfect capital markets create a hierarchy for the different sources of funds such that investment and financial decisions are not independent.The relation between corporate...

We investigate the investment-cash flow sensitivity of a large sample of the UK listed firms and confirm that investment is strongly cash flow-sensitive.Is this suboptimal investment policy the result of agency problems when managers with high discretion overinvest, or of asymmetric information...