This study proposes that heterogeneous household portfolio choices within a country and across countries offer an explanation for global imbalances. We construct a stochastic growth multi-country model in which heterogeneous agents face the following restrictions on asset trade. First, the...

U.S. financial institutions have traditionally insured the typical U.S. household against persistent shocks to U.S. inflation through the U.S. mortgage market. The bond risk premium is effectively the price of long-run inflation risk insurance charged by these U.S. intermediaries. Starting in...