We develop a general equilibrium model of wealth transfers in the presence of uncertain lifetimes and default. Without introducing exogenous debt constraints, agents are allowed to make collateral-backed promises at any state of their life span.

This paper reviews the exciting and rapidly expanding literature on realized volatility. After presenting a general univariate framework for estimating realized volatilities, a simple discrete time model is presented in order to motivate the main results. A continuous time specification provides...

We propose a new regression method to estimate the impact of explanatory variables on quantiles of the unconditional distribution of an outcome variable. The proposed method consists of running a regression of the (recentered) influence function (RIF) of the unconditional quantile on the...

This paper accounts for the value of children and future generations in the evaluation of health policies. This is achieved through the incorporation of altruism and fertility in a “value of life” type of framework. We are able to express adults’ willingness to pay for changes in child...

Global warming caused by accumulation of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is a public bad, addressing which requires collective action by all the countries of the world. Under the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), most countries have negotiated the Kyoto Protocol for GHG...

Child labor (CL) has been a major concern for the developing world, especially for India with its goal towards 'inclusive growth'. However, impact (or vulnerabilities) of major domestic or external spillovers (policy related or recessionary shocks) on child labor market, in contrary to other...

This paper examines the effects of campaign spending limits on political competition and incumbency advantage. We study a reform in Brazil that imposed limits on campaign spending for mayoral elections. These limits were implemented with a discontinuous kink which we exploit for causal...

In der Makroökonomik werden Liquiditätsfallen ohne Mikrofundierung als existent angenommen und die Japan-Krise hat Liquiditätsfallen wieder zum Diskussionsthema gemacht. Deshalb wird die Frage der Existenz von Liquiditätsfallen hier portfolio-theoretisch untersucht im Rahmen eines...

In this discussion paper the program of the Research Unit Cultural Sources of Newness is presented. Short descriptions of currently nine projects follow. The assumption driving the research program is that newness lies at the core of innovations and emerges in cultural sources, which are...