The authors study, theoretically and quantitatively, the general equilibrium of an economy in which households smooth consumption by means of both a riskless asset and unsecured loans with the option to default. The default option resembles a bankruptcy filing under Chapter 7 of the U.S....

We study macroeconomic implications of uninsured idiosyncratic uncertainty with two applications. The first two essays focus on the consumer bankruptcy, and the third essay is an analysis of prices of housing and financial assets. In the first essay, Quantitative Theory of Unsecured Consumer...

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...

In this paper I quantitatively investigate macroeconomic and welfare implications of the recent consumer bankruptcy law reform using a general equilibrium life-cycle model with unsecured debt and equilibrium default where agents have preferences featuring temptation and self-control problems....

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...

This paper measures the effect of extensions of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on the unemployment rate using a calibrated structural model that features job search and consumption-saving decision, skill depreciation, UI eligibility, and UI benefit extensions that capture what has happened...

We build a New Keynesian model in which heterogeneous workers differ with regard to their employment status due to search and matching frictions in the labor market, their potential labor income, and their amount of savings. We use this laboratory to quantitatively assess who stands to win or...

How important are intergenerational heterogeneity and an aging population for the design of systematic monetary policy? We answer this question using a New-Keynesian business cycle model with overlapping generations of households. Our model features rich heterogeneity; households differ not only...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires all individuals to have health insurance, and introduces penalties to large firms that do not offer affordable coverage to their employees. While the possible effects of the ACA on the insurance decision of individuals have been...

A life-cycle model with equilibrium default in which consumers with and without temptation coexist is constructed to evaluate the 2005 bankruptcy law reform and other counterfactual reforms. The calibrated model indicates that the 2005 bankruptcy reform achieves its goal of reducing the number...