Australian employers are obliged by law to make a minimum compulsory contribution as a proportion of salaries into employees' superannuation (pension) funds. Individuals can also make voluntary contributions on top of the compulsory amount. We examine voluntary contributions amongst two groups...

The COVID-19 pandemic induced an increase in both the amount of time that households spend at home and the share of expenditures allocated to at-home consumption. These changes coincided with a period of rapidly rising house prices. We interpret these facts as the result of stay-at-home shocks...

This paper surveys the literature on the linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes. It focuses on three major questions. First, what are the basic theoretical linkages between asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes? Second, what is the empirical evidence supporting these...

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on the macroeconomic implications of financial imperfections. It focuses on two major channels through which financial imperfections can affect macroeconomic outcomes. The first channel, which operates through the demand side of finance...

Economists have generally ignored the notion that perceived time may differ from clock time. Borrowing from the behavioral psychology literature, we investigate the case of time compression whereby perceived time passes more quickly than actual time. A framework is presented to embed time...

How does a political leader’s messaging during a pandemic influence social distancing by citizens? We model the strategic choice of narrative in a beauty contest setting where the leader seeks to eliminate the disease. The leader’s resolve to eliminate the disease affects her narrative in a...

The current account in developed countries is highly persistent and volatile in comparison to their output growth. The standard intertemporal current account model with rational expectations (RE) fails to explain the observed current account and consumption dynamics. The RE model extended with...

This paper explores risk aversion among Australian households using panel data from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Using households' share of risky assets, we test whether relative risk aversion is constant in wealth. After accounting for measurement error,...

In this paper, we characterize the relationship between the initial distribution of human capital and physical inheritances among individuals and the long-run distribution of these two variables. In a model with indivisible investment in education, we analyze how the initial distribution of...

Life-cycle theory predicts ageing exerting long-term macroeconomic impacts through the reduction of private savings. However, empirical research studying macroeconomic determinants of savings generally regard age dependency as the sole measure of ageing, but overlook longevity, which can also...