The current account in developed countries is highly persistent and volatile in comparison to output growth. The standard intertemporal current account model with rational expectations (RE) fails to account for the observed current account dynamics together with persistent changes in...

We analyze the consumption and wealth inequality in an OLG model with mandatory pension systems. Our framework features within cohort heterogeneity of endowments and heterogeneity of preferences. We allow for population aging and gradual decline in TFP growth. We show four main results. First,...

We estimate the "Unhedged Interest Rate Exposure" (URE) of euro area households. URE is the difference between maturing assets and maturing liabilities at a point in time. It captures the extent to which households are exposed to changes in the interest rates and translates into the direct gains...

We investigate partial insurance and group risk sharing in extended family networks. Our approach is based on decomposing income shocks into group aggregate and idiosyncratic components, allowing us to measure the extent to which each component is insured. We apply our framework to extended...

This paper provides experimental evidence of the role of higher order risk attitudes — especially prudence — in prevention behavior. Prudence, under an expected utility framework, increases (decreases) self-protection effort compared to the risk neutral level when the risk of losing part of...

How sizable is the wealth effect on consumption in euro area countries? To address this question, we use newly available harmonized euro area wealth data and the methodology in Carroll et al. (2011b). We find that the marginal propensity to consume out of total wealth averaged across the largest...

How do changes in monetary policy affect consumption? Using household data for the US and the UK, we show that most of the aggregate response of consumption to interest rates is driven by households with a mortgage. Outright home owners do not adjust expenditure at all and renters change their...

Macroeconomic models often invoke consumption "habits" to explain the substantial persistence of macroeconomic consumption growth. But a large literature has found no evidence of habits in the microeconomic datasets that measure the behavior of individual households. We show that the apparent...

When the financial positions of pension funds worsen, regulations prescribe that pension funds reduce the gap between their assets (invested contributions) and their liabilities (accumulated pension promises). This paper quantifies the business cycle effects and distributional implications of...

The ratio of consumption to total household wealth (i.e., tangible assets plus unobserved human wealth) is commonly calculated from the estimation of a log-linear version of the household intertemporal budget constraint as a cointegrating relationship between consumption, assets and earnings...