We revisit classic questions concerning the effects of money on investment in a new framework: a two-sector model where some trade occurs in centralized and some in decentralized markets, as in recent monetary theory, but extended to include capital. This allows us to incorporate novel elements...

We analyze labor market models where the law of one price does not hold; i.e., models with equilibrium wage dispersion. We begin assuming workers are ex ante heterogeneous, and highlight a flaw with this approach: if search is costly, the market shuts down. We then assume workers are homogeneous...

One important function of banks is to issue liabilities, like demand deposits, that are relatively safe and also liquid (usable as means of payment). We introduce risk of theft and a safe-keeping role for banks into monetary theory. This provides a general equilibrium framework for analyzing...

Many individuals simultaneously have significant credit card debt and money in the bank. The credit card debt puzzle is as follows: given high interest rates on credit cards and low rates on bank accounts, why not pay down debt? While some economists go to elaborate lengths to explain this, we...

In the 2001 U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), 27% of households report simultaneously revolving significant credit card debt and holding sizeable amounts of liquid assets. These consumers report paying, on average, a 14% interest rate on their debt, while earning only 1 or 2% on their...

We develop a life-cycle model of the labor market in which different worker-firm matches have different quality and the assignment of the right workers to the right firms is time consuming because of search and learning frictions. The rate at which workers move between unemployment, employment...

The extent to which retirees save or dissave late in life, and the reasons why they do so, have been the subject of a debate in the lifecycle consumption and saving literature for some time. While the literature typically focuses on retirees' net worth, and debates whether retirees save for...

We study empirically and theoretically the patterns of home equity withdrawal among retirees, using a model where retirees are able to own or rent a home, save, and borrow against home equity, in the face of idiosyncratic risks concerning mortality, health, medical expenditures, and household...

How much of a worker's lifetime experience in the labor market is due to human capital accumulation versus luck? We build a life-cycle model of directed search in the labor market, in which workers move between the states of unemployment, employment and across employers because of differences in...

House prices fall as the time on the market passes. We document this negative duration dependence for the US housing market using house-level data on listed prices. We interpret the pattern as a result of sellers' imperfect information about the "appeal" of houses to potential buyers. When...