We study how the heterogeneity of information impacts the efficiency of the business cycle and the design of optimal fiscal and monetary policy. We do so within a model that features a standard Dixit-Stiglitz demand structure, introduces dispersed private information about the underlying...

This paper extends Carroll's (2006) endogenous grid method and its combination with value function iteration by Barillas and Fernandez-Villaverde (2007) to non-concave problems. The method is illustrated using a non-concave consumer problem in which consumers choose both durable and non-durable...

Preliminary results show that when this model is parameterized to match a number of targets - in particular the joint cross-sectional distribution of liquid and illiquid wealth - it is able to generate responses to fiscal stimulus payments of the observed order of magnitude. The model is also...

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....