This paper builds a unifying framework based on the theory of intertemporal consumption choices that brings together the limited participation-based explanation of the C-CAPM poor empirical performance and the transaction costs-based explanation of incomplete portfolios. Using the implications...

Over much of the past 25 years, the cycles of house price and consumption growth have been closely synchronised. Three main hypotheses for this co-movement have been proposed in the literature. First, that an increase in house prices raises households' wealth, particularly for those in a...

East Asia and Latin America have diverged in several dimensions in the past three decades. This paper compares household saving behavior in two countries in each region (Mexico, Peru, Thailand and Taiwan). We make four contributions. First, we provide the first comparisons of savings in these...

We investigate the empirical significance of borrowing constraints in the market for consumer loans. We set up a theoretical model of consumer loan demand, which in the presence of credit rationing implies restrictions on the elasticities of loan demand with respect to the interest rate and the...

This paper evaluates quantitatively the impact of the observed demographic transition on aggregate variables (factor prices, saving rate, output growth), and on inter-generational welfare in developing economies. It does so by developing a large-scale two-region equilibrium overlapping...

This report moves beyond the conventional scope of economics to examine three entrenched structural factors -demography, geography and institutions- that are closely connected to economic and social development. Historical in nature and slow to evolve, these variables are not always in the...

This paper constructs a general equilibrium overlapping generation model to evaluate quantitatively how demographic transition (falling mortality and fertility rates) affects aggregate variables (wages, interest rate, output), and inter-generational welfare in closed and open economies. We...