This paper models the effect of a HIV/AIDS epidemic on saving behavior and studies the welfare effects of testing for HIV. The model specifies a utility function that includes both regular consumption, and medical expenditures. Medical expenditures generate more utility if individuals are HIV...

This paper studies the effect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on saving behaviour. Two important characteristics of HIV result in opposing forces on savings: mortality increases, which reduces savings, and long-term illness risk increases, which enhances savings. We use a two period life-cycle model...

In 1960, Working noted that time aggregation of a random walk induces serial correlation in the first difference that is not present in the original series. This important contribution has been overlooked in a recent literature analyzing income and consumption in panel data. I examine Blundell,...

In this paper household level data are used to explore whether unemployment risk is an important factor in the timing of consumers' durable goods purchase decisions. A theoretical model is presented in which both income uncertainty and household debt play a direct role, offering a potential...

A well-established result in the literature is that Social Security tends to reduce steady state welfare in a standard life cycle model. However, less is known about the historical effects of the program on agents who were alive when the program was adopted. In a computational life cycle model...

This paper quantifies the welfare implications of the U.S. Social Security program during the Great Recession. We find that the average welfare losses due to the Great Recession for agents alive at the time of the shock are notably smaller in an economy with Social Security relative to an...

This paper explores the microfoundations of consumption models and quantifies the macro implications of consumption heterogeneity. We propose a new empirical method to estimate the response of consumption to permanent and transitory income shocks for different groups of households. We then apply...

We estimate the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) out of permanent and transitory shocks to house price appreciation. We consider two different models under which those shocks may affect consumption. In the first one, housing is a risky asset. In the second one, housing has a role as a...

We study the asset pricing implications of a general equilibrium Lucas endowment economy inhabited by two agents with habit formation preferences. Preferences are modeled either as internal or external habits. We allow for agents' heterogeneity in relative risk aversion and habit strength. We...

This paper studies the link between rising income uncertainty and household fertility patterns in an Aiyagari-Bewley-Huggett framework augmented to include fertility decisions and infertility risk. Building on Becker and Tomes (1976), I model fertility decisions as sequential, irreversible...