In this paper we develop a quantitative model of entrepreneurial activity (risk-taking) and consumer bankruptcy choices and use the model to study the effects of bankruptcy regulations on entrepreneurial activity, bankruptcy rate and welfare. We show that eliminating bankruptcy exemptions leads...

This paper investigates the influence of economic news on consumer sentiment, and examines whether ‘news shocks’ –- changes in coverage that would not be expected from incoming data on economic fundamentals -– have aggregate effects. Using monthly U.S. data and a structural...

In this paper, we analyse the saving behavior of the aged in Japan using household-level data from a 1992 survey conducted by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of foreign currency sovereign ratings. It examines the systematic differences between credit rating agencies regarding both the factors included in the sovereign rating process and the weightings attached to these factors, as well as the...

This paper complements previous studies by arguing that the low private savings ratio in Latin America can be associated with the limited confidence of households and businesses in domestic financial institutions. This paper offers an alternative view by claiming that the private savings rate...

Evidence from behavioural experiments suggests that intertemporal preferences reflect a hyperbolic discount function. This paper shows that in contrast to exponential discounting, the elasticity of intertemporal substitution for hyperbolic consumers depends on the persistence of the change in...

In this paper we review some fundamental issues that have been identified by macroeconomists in discussing the co-ordination of monetary and fiscal policy. As Sargent and Wallace (1981) graphically illustrated, the consolidated public sector present-value budget constraint means that monetary...

This paper simulates a gbuffer-stockh saving model of precautionary saving and estimates the parameters of the utility function by matching the simulated age-consumption profile with those observed in the micro-level data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) in Japan. Our...