In search theory, an important distinction can be drawn between models with directed search and with random /undirected search. In the present paper we first present a simple model of competitive on-the-job search, where firms' productivity differences emerge endogenously through the firms'...

We study a model where households use home equity to finance consumption expenditures and we analyze the macroeconomic consequences of a credit crunch triggered by tightening lending standards.

This paper studies adaptive learning with multiple models. An agent operating in a self-referential environment is aware of potential model misspecification, and tries to detect it, in real-time, using an econometric specification test. If the current model passes the test, it is used to...

In this paper we examine the effect of collateral requirements on the prices of long- lived assets. We consider a Lucas-style infinite-horizon exchange economy with heteroge- nous agents and collateral constraints. There are two trees in the economy which can be used as collateral for short-term...

In the United States, the residential housing market went through important changes over the period of the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Although the aggregate homeownership rate was relatively constant during that period, the distribution of homeownership rates by age changed in remarkable ways....

Several frictions might prevent (or make undesirable) the full taxation of savings. Due to international capital mobility, for instance, the government may not have perfect control over agent's saving and consumption decisions. We show in this paper that a restricted ability to tax savings has...

We analyze how public debt evolves when successive policymakers have different policy goals and cannot make credible commitments about their future policies. We consider several cases to be able to quantify the effects of imperfect commitment, political disagreement and political turnover....

In this paper we are concerned with what drives international capital flows. The estimated spectra of net foreign asset positions show that they are driven almost entirely by low frequency components which argues against many of the dire warnings that are issued about short term adjustments in...

This paper studies the role of social security and tax and transfer programs for understanding cross-country differences in labor supply late in the life cycle. First, we use the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) as well as the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to...

We document new facts about the behavior of U.S. multinational firms and their affiliates regarding the product space in which they operate, the nature of their input-output relationships, and intra-firm trade flows. We use confidential data on U.S. multinational firms from the Bureau of...