This paper studies household financial choices in four euro area countries. The goal of the analysis is to understand the sources of the differences in these choices and their implications for the impact of monetary policy on consumption. The estimation of key parameters uses a simulated method...

This paper studies the determination of income taxes in a dynamic setting with human capital accumulation. The goal is to understand the factors that support an outcome without complete redistribution, given a majority of relatively poor agents. In the analysis, the internal dynamics of income...

Barber and Odean study the relationship between trading activity and returns. They find that households who trade more have a lower net return than other households. They argue that these results cannot emerge from a model with rational traders and instead attribute these findings to...

This project studies the impact of education mismatch on labor outcomes. Across our sample of OECD countries, there is evidence of mismatch in education choices and labor markets. Labor market outcomes are not independent of education mismatch. Our framework for analysis is a dynamic choice...

This paper studies the determinants of TFPR, a revenue based measure of total factor productivity. Recent business cycle models are built upon the countercyclical dispersion of TFPR. But, the distribution of TFPR is endogenous, dependent upon other exogenous shocks and the endogenous...

This paper studies the exporting decision of Chinese manufacturing firms. The economic framework stresses the dynamic decision by both state controlled and private entities to export in a model with labor adjustment costs. In this complex environment, a simple decision rule whereby export status...

This paper studies competing sources of declining dynamism. Evidence shows that an important component of this decline is accounted for by the reduction in the response of employment to shocks in US establishments. Using a plant level dynamic optimization problem as a framework for analysis,...

A major unresolved issue in business cycle theory is the construction of an endogenous propagation mechanism capable of capturing the amount of persistence displayed in the data. In this paper we explore the quantitative implications of one propagation mechanism: learning by doing. Estimation of...

This paper considers the importance of dynamic complementarities as an endogenous source of propagation in a dynamic stochastic economy. Dynamic complementarities link the stocks of human and organizational capital, which are influenced by past levels of economic activity, to current levels of...

Using data from 56 nations over 45 years, we find that nations that are more likely to elect left wing governments face higher (and more volatile) sovereign spreads. To explain these facts, we build a sovereign default model in which two policymakers (left and right) alternate in power. The...