We investigate the welfare effects of eliminating business cycles in a model with substantial consumer heterogeneity. The heterogeneity arises from uninsurable idiosyncratic uncertainty in preferences and employment status. We distinguish between short- and long-term unemployment. Long-term...

This paper explores the asset-price implications in economies where there is no direct insurance against idiosyncratic risks but there are other assets---such as a riskfree bond or equity---that can be used for self-insurance, subject to exogenously imposed borrowing limits. We analyze an...

This paper analyzes the implications of plant-level dynamics over the business cycle. We first document basic patterns of entry and exit of U.S. manufacturing plants, in terms of employment and productivity, between 1972 and 1997. We show how entry and exit patterns vary during the business...

Idson (1999).

Consumer debt and bankruptcy are central issues today because of their explosive trends over the last 20 years in the U.S. economy. However, there is no convincing explanation for these facts. A drop in information costs, a potential cause, has not been evaluated mainly because there is no...

We present a new automated, objective and intuitive scoring method to measure the content of central bank communication about future policy rate moves. We apply the methodology to statements released by the Federal Open Market Commitee (FOMC) after monetary policy meetings. Using high-frequency...

This paper develops a competitive equilibrium model of CEO compensation and industry dynamics. CEOs make product pricing and product improvement decisions subject to shareholders' compensation choices and idiosyncratic shocks to product quality. The choice of high-powered incentives optimally...

We explore the implications of current account adjustment for monetary policy within a simple two-country DSGE model. Our framework nests Obstfeld and Rogoff’s (2005) static model of exchange rate responsiveness to current account reversals. It extends this approach by endogenizing the dynamic...

estimate the sharing rule using 2000 Census data and implement a semi-parametric test of the over-identifying restrictions.

higher job satisfaction than the employed, even after controlling for income and hours worked. However, there is a large amount of heterogeneity in this effect: while “independent types” experience a large increase in job satisfaction from being self-employed, “hierarchical types” even...