In a recent paper [Luo, Smith, and Zou (2009)] we showed that the spirit of capitalism could in theory resolve the two fundamental anomalies of modern consumption theory, excess sensitivity and excess smoothness. However, that basic model could not plausibly explain the empirical magnitude of...

This paper studies decisionmaking with rules of thumb in the context of dynamic decision problems and compares it to dynamic programming. A rule is a fixed mapping from a subset of states into actions. Rules are compared by averaging over past experiences. This can lead to favoring rules which...

This paper derives the general equilibrium effects of rational inattention (or RI; Sims 2003,2010) in a model of incomplete income insurance (Huggett 1993, Wang 2003). We show that,under the assumption of CARA utility with Gaussian shocks, the permanent income hypothesis (PIH) arises in steady...

In this paper, a stochastic endogenous aggregative growth model is constructed and two main results are established, based on endogenous horizon of the economy and endogenous terminal capital stock, which is also efficient capital accumulation in some sense. First, strong turnpike theorems under...

The method of endogenous gridpoints (ENDG) significantly speeds up the solution to dynamic stochastic optimization problems with continuous state and control variables by avoiding repeated computations of expected outcomes while searching for optimal policy functions. While the method has been...

Latin America has had striking changes in economic performance over time. Following the recession and debt crises of the early 1980’s, consumption declined for about ten years and consumption per-capita in the year 2004 was roughly the same as it was in 1980. This paper studies consumption...

In dynamic optimization problems with multiple continuous state variables and multiple continuous controls, the method of endogenous gridpoints (ENDG) generates an irregular collection of gridpoints for which standard interpolation techniques do not apply, while alternative interpolation methods...

This note extends the finding of Benhabib and Rusticchini (1994) who provide a class of SDGE models, whose solution is characterized by a constant savings rate. We show that this class of models may be interpreted as a standard representative agent SDGE model with costly adjustment of capital...

This paper studies the aggregate dynamics of durable and nondurable consumption under sticky information diffusion (SID) due to noisy observations and slow learning within the permanent income framework. We show that SID can significantly improve the model's predictions on the joint behavior of...

The purpose of this paper is to understand the effects of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) and risk aversion on savings separately and determine which coefficient is more important factor for precautionary savings. This is an important question since a significant fraction of...