We describe a model for calculating the optimal quantity of debt and then apply it to the U.S. economy. The model consists of a large number of infinitely-lived households whose saving behavior is influenced by precautionary saving motives and borrowing constraints. This model incorporates a...

This paper is motivated by observations concerning the size of the banking sector and the growth rate of the economy before and after successful stabilizations of high inflations. The facts suggest that the relative size of the banking sector increases during a period of accelerating inflation...

A framework is developed with what we call technology capital. A country is a measure of locations. Absent policy constraints, a firm owning a unit of technology capital can produce the composite output good using the unit of technology capital at as many locations as it chooses. But it can...

Entrepreneurship is a key determinant of investment, saving, wealth holdings, and wealth inequality. We study the aggregate and the distributional effects of several tax reforms in a model that recognizes the key role played by the entrepreneurs, and that matches very well the extreme degree of...

Prior to 1863, state-chartered banks in the United States issued notes - dollar-denominated promises to pay specie to the bearer on demand. Although these notes circulated at par locally, they usually were quoted at a discount outside the local area. These discounts varied by both the location...

This study examines common stock prices around ex-dividend dates. Such price data usually contain a mixture of observations - some with and some without arbitrageurs and/or dividend capturers active. Our theory predicts that such mixing will result in a nonlinear relation between percentage...

A central debate in applied macroeconomics is whether statistical tools that use minimal identifying assumptions are useful for isolating promising models within a broad class. In this paper, I compare three statistical models - a vector autoregressive moving average (VARMA) model, an...

In this paper, we construct a parsimonious overlapping-generations model of human capital accumulation and study its quantitative implications for the evolution of the U.S. wage distribution from 1970 to 2000. A key feature of the model is that individuals differ in their ability to accumulate...

This paper studies consumption and labor supply in a model where agents have partial insurance and face risk and initial heterogeneity in wages and preferences. Equilibrium allocations and variances and covariances of wages, hours and consumption are solved for analytically. We prove that all...

I study asset prices in a two-agent macroeconomic model with two key features: limited stock market participation and heterogeneity in the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption (EIS). The model is consistent with some prominent features of asset prices, such as a high equity...