The quantitative macroeconomics literature has documented that in the basic Overlapping Generations model a privatization of the social security system, going from a Pay-As-You-Go to a Fully Funded system, generates large long run welfare gains at the cost of substantial welfare losses for...

This paper analyzes the connection between the asymmetric tax treatment of homeowners and landlords and the progressivity of income taxation using a quantitative overlapping generations general equilibrium model with housing and rental markets. Our model emphasizes the determinants of tenure...

We examine the optimal policy response to an exogenously given demographic shock. Such a shock affects negatively the financing of retirement pensions, and we use optimal fiscal policy in order to determine the optimal strategy of the social security administration. Our approach provides...

We argue that a privatization of the social security system, going from a Pay-As-You-Go to a Fully Funded system, can be interpreted as the explicit recognition of an implicit debt and there is no efficiency gain in doing so. As a consequence, potential efficiency gains upon reforming the system...

In this paper we show that the generational accounting framework used in macroeconomics to measure tax incidence can, in some cases, yield inaccurate measurements of the tax burden across age cohorts. This result is very important for policy evaluation, because it shows that the selection of tax...

May 30, 2012. "Demographics, Redistribution, and Optimal Inflation," with Carlos Garriga and Christopher J. Waller. Presented by Christopher Waller at the 2012 BOJ-IMES Conference Demographic Changes and Macroeconomic Performance.

Mortgage loans are a striking example of a persistent nominal rigidity. As a result, under incomplete markets, monetary policy affects decisions through the cost of new mortgage borrowing and the value of payments on outstanding debt. Observed debt levels and payment to income ratios suggest the...

This paper provides a simple two-depositor, two-stage model to understand how a bank’s withdrawal history affects an individual’s decision about withdrawals, which could possibly trigger bank runs. Individual depositors have private information about their personal consumption types and...

Recovery of the construction sector seems a necessary ingredient for a strong and sustained recovery of economic activity and a reduction in the unemployment rate.