Abstract The literature on exchange rate regimes has recently observed that officially self-declared free floaters intervene strongly in foreign exchange markets to maintain their nominal exchange rates within some unannounced bands. In this paper, we provide an explanation of this behavior,...

Abstract This paper suggests that the main (and possibly unique) source of beta- and sigma-convergence in GDP per worker (i.e. labor productivity) across Italian regions over the 1980-2004 period is the change in technical and allocative efficiency, i.e. convergence in relative TFP levels. To...

Abstract Limited participation models explain a short-run liquidity effect as arising from the redistribution of income from non-participants in the bond market to participants in the bond market. However, these models also imply that the liquidity effect is smaller the larger is long-run money...

Abstract This paper shows that the value function describing efficient risk sharing with limited commitment is not necessarily differentiable everywhere. We link differentiability of the value function to history dependence of efficient allocations and provide sufficient conditions for both...

Abstract This paper examines the allocation of heterogeneous workers across sectors of an economy in which workers are able to direct their search towards particular firms. We find that search frictions, in addition to causing unemployment, may result in an inefficient allocation of labor. This...

Abstract We examine bank lending decisions in an economy with spillover effects in the creation of new investment opportunities and asymmetric information in credit markets. We examine price-setting equilibria with horizontally differentiated banks. If bank lending takes place under a weak...

Abstract This paper presents, within a framework of the Solow model, evidence that there are significant differences in convergence patterns across subsamples. It shows that although OECD countries and the countries converging to their steady states from above follow a pattern of conditional...

Abstract This paper demonstrates that sectoral heterogeneity itself, without additional bells or whistles, has important, first-order implications for the transmission of aggregate shocks to aggregate variables in an otherwise standard DSGE model. The effects of sectoral heterogeneity on this...

Abstract Many studies show that individuals do not perfectly smooth consumption at older ages. We argue that an important explanation is that health status declines with age, making consumption at older ages less desirable. We incorporate health status into a standard incomplete markets...

Abstract This paper examines a search-matching model in which match specific output follows a geometric Brownian motion. As opposed to Poisson Processes, Brownian motions generate a negative correlation between job output and the likelihood of separation. Introducing geometric Brownian motion...