The existing literature suggests that when the saving decision of two-earner households under risk is analysed, standard results on the existence of precautionary saving no longer apply: precautionary saving is obtained if and only if very stringent conditions hold. This paper shows that when...

We use new population-wide register data on inheritances and wealth in Sweden to estimate the causal impact of inheritances on wealth inequality. We find that inheritances reduce relative wealth inequality (e.g., the Gini coefficient falls by 5–10 percent) but that absolute dispersion...

Feldstein [1985] posed the questions of what would be the optimal level of retirement benefit, and what would be the optimal mix between the pay-as-you-go system and the funded pension system under the assumption of an exogenous interest rate. We reconsider the problem with the addition of a...

Over the last three decades, average income for the bottom half of the US distribution increased by 8% while their average saving rate decreased by eight percentage points. Over the same period the US experienced a substantial increase in inequality and a continuous decrease in the aggregate...

This paper estimates the economic and non-economic returns to volunteering for prime-aged women. A woman's decision to engage in unpaid work, and to marry and have children, is formulated as a forward-looking discrete choice dynamic programming problem. Simulated maximum likelihood estimates of...

This paper establishes a simple theoretical framework which comprises key forces that shape the structure and interrelation of cities to study the interdependencies between urban evolution and the environment. We focus on the potential of the unfettered market forces to economize on emissions. A...