Major bubble episodes are rare events. In this paper, we examine what factors might cause some asset price bubbles to become very large. We recreate, in a laboratory setting, some of the specific institutional features investors in the South Sea Company faced in 1720. Several factors have been...

The theory and the data in this Paper challenge the view that there is no structure in prices and allocations when markets are off equilibrium. Starting from the observation that price-taking usually applies only to small orders, a theory of equilibration is derived based on the assumption that...

We measure the amount of income insurance and cross-sectional consumption smoothing (lending and borrowing) achieved within subgroups of states, such as regions or clubs, e.g. the club of rich states. We find that there is as much income insurance between, as well as within, regions. By...

We study the joint dynamics of foreign capital flows and real activity during the recent boom-bust cycle of the Spanish economy, using a three-country New Keynesian model with credit constrained households and firms, a construction sector and a government. We estimate the model using...

Does the transmission of economic policies and structural shocks vary with the state of the economy? We answer this question using a strategy based on quantile regressions, which account for both endogeneous regressors and state-dependent parameters. An application to U.S. real activity and...

We study a largely neglected channel through which government expenditures boost private consumption. We set up a lifecycle model in which households are subject to health shocks. We estimate a negative impact of public health care on household consumption dispersion, wealth and saving....

There is widespread disagreement about the role of housing wealth in explaining consumption. This paper exploits liquid and illiquid wealth time series from household balance sheet data for South Africa, previously constructed by the authors, to explain fluctuations in the ratios of consumption...

We develop a simple integration of banks into the Solow model. The objective is to provide a tractable benchmark for analyzing the long-term impact of crises on economic activities and growth. A fraction of firms have to rely on banks for financing their investments, while banks themselves face...

The Paper investigates the role of the real exchange rate in relationships between consumption growth rates across countries when financial markets are integrated. The real exchange rate introduces a wedge between real marginal utilities of consumption in different countries and this wedge plays...

Using a human-capital-based growth model, we show the essential role of labour mobility and cross-country tax harmonization in equalizing income levels of countries that start off from different initial income positions. Knowledge spillovers cum labour mobility are the driving forces behind the...