Rigidities in firms’ payroll structures are likely to increase the transmission of shocks to firms’ cash flows and profitability. By using Italian administrative data on workers careers and firms’ balance sheets, we study how the use of permanent and fixed-term labor contracts affects this...

What is the impact of student loans on post baccalaureate choices? Using within-college variations in financial aid policies, we find that higher levels of debt induce a front loading of earnings, an underinvestment in human capital and an earlier entry into home ownership. We then estimate a...

Importance of distributional channels in macroeconomic dynamics has been the object of considerable attention in empirical studies. Despite significant amount of effort aimed at incorporating heterogeneity into macroeconomics, however, their explicit inclusion in the standard policy toolbox is...

To what extent are young workers affected by health shocks that happen to their parents? This paper studies the short and long-term spillover effects of parents' adverse health events on their adult children. We use the unique structure of the Panel Survey on Income Dynamics (PSID) to build...

Surges in public debt in many countries since the COVID-19 pandemic have rekindled interest in fiscal consolidations, which often entail difficult policy choices in the face of economic and political constraints. This paper presents findings from a survey of the literature on fiscal...