The paper estimates a job search model with savings on Danish microdata that include observations on wealth and wages. Controlling for extensive observed and unobserved worker characteristics heterogeneity, the estimation relates observed unemployment spells to the model implied hazard rate for...

This paper examines a model in which growth takes place through investment-specific technological change, which in turn is determined endogenously through research spending. In particular, the role of the degree of substitutability between research spending and new capital construction is...

In 2005, reforms made formal personal bankruptcy much more costly. Shortly after, the US began to experience its most severe recession in seventy years, and while personal bankruptcy rates rose, they rose only modestly given the severity of the rise in unemployment. By contrast, informal default...

We study bilateral matching under private information about agents' characteristics. Assortative matching is the only equilibrium outcome in the absence of private information. When an information friction is present, the matching process can be improved if a payoff-irrelevant variable which we...

This paper analyzes the political economy of growth when agents and the government have finite horizons and equilibrium growth is inefficient. A "representative" government (i.e. one whose preferences reflect those of its constituents) endowed merely with the ability to tax and transfer can...

This paper uses a new version of the Auerbach-Kotlikoff model to consider alternative ways to privatize the U.S. Social Security system. The new model incorporates intra- and intergenerational heterogeneity and is closely calibrated to U.S. fiscal institutions. Three privatization issues are...

Although intergenerational transfers of time in the form of grandparenting are substantial, little is known about their role and importance. In this paper, we calibrate an overlapping generations model extended to allow for both time and monetary transfers to the US economy. We use simulations...

Four options to make the social security sustainable under the coming demographic shift are presented; increase payroll taxes by 6 percentage points, reduce replacement rates by one-third, raise the normal retirement age to 73, or means-test the benefits and reduce them in income. The paper...

The objective of this paper is to understand how loan structure affects (i) the borrower's selection of a mortgage contract and (ii) the aggregate economy. We develop a quantitative equilibrium theory of mortgage choice where households can choose from a menu of long-term (norminal) mortgage...

We show that the long-run neutrality of inflation on capital accumulation obtained in complete market models no longer holds when households face binding credit constraints. Borrowing-constrained households are not able to rebalance their financial portfolio when inflation varies, and thus...