We use China's large-scale reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the late 1990s as a natural experiment to identify and quantify the importance of precautionary saving for wealth accumulation. Before the reform, SOE workers enjoyed the same job security as government employees. Since the...

We use China’s large-scale reform of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in the late 1990s as a natural experiment to identify and quantify the importance of precautionary savings for wealth accumulation. Before the reform, SOE workers enjoyed the same job security as government employees. After the...

Wage inequality between education groups in the United States has increased substantially since the early 1980s. The relative number of college-educated workers has also increased dramatically in the postwar period. This paper presents a unified framework where the dynamics of both skill...

Wage inequality between education groups in the United States has increased substantially since the early 1980s. The relative quantity of college-educated workers has also increased dramatically in the postwar period. This paper presents a unified framework where the dynamics of both skill...

This paper studies the empirical relevance of temptation and self-control using household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We estimate an infinite-horizon consumption-savings model that allows, but does not require, temptation and self-control in preferences. To help identify the...