We find VAR evidence that a rise in US government spending boosts consumption and firm entry. The joint dynamics observed in the data poses a puzzle for business cycle models with endogenous entry (extensive-margin investment). Persistent spending expansions generate entry but crowd out...

Monthly fluctuations in consumer spending are often attributed to the weather. This paper presents a model in which weather affects the productivity of time in nonmarket activities (such as shopping or recreation), and so, via time and budget constraints, may induce substitution in spending...

The paper investigates the role of the real exchange rate in international risk sharing relationships. The real exchange rate introduces a wedge between real marginal utilities of consumption in different countries and this wedge plays a prominent role in a number of new theories of...

We study a pure exchange economy with two groups of agents who exhibit different consumption patterns: one changes consumption immediately in response to shocks, but the other delays the response. We investigate the linkages among the consumption heterogeneity, business cycles, and asset returns...

Recessions and expansions are often caused or reinforced by developments in private consumption - the largest component of aggregate demand - which, as a result, varies over the business cycle. As such, an accurate measurement of the cyclical component of consumption and an understanding of its...

We study the effects of aggregate income shocks in a small open economy heterogeneous agent model. By introducing a standard information friction, we are able to explain two patterns of small economies experiencing large income changes: (1) excess volatility in consumption and (2) household...

We propose a methodology based on multiresolution analysis to decompose a time series in components classifi ed by their level of persistence. Using this decomposition to detect the layers with diff erent degrees of persistence in consumption growth, we provide empirical evidence that some of...

This document contains the first two chapters from my dissertation, titled Three Essays on Consumption and Geography, which use data provided by the Kilts Center for Marketing Data Center. Together they highlight the importance of accounting for geographic differences in new product entry to...

We estimate real consumption's growth rate and volatility in light of three new facts documenting geographic differences in consumption: (1) consumers in separate markets buy different products, (2) a product's market share varies geographically conditional on relative price, and (3) product...

We study the effects of monetary policy on aggregate consumption combining a heterogeneous agent model with measured expectations under different policy counterfactuals. We express the consumption of non-hand-to-mouth households as a function of expectations only and elicit all expectations...