In Chapter 2, "Accounting for Cross-Country Differences in Intergenerational Earnings Persistence: The Impact of Taxation and Public Education Expenditure," I study the determinants of cross-country differences in intergenerational earnings persistence between fathers and sons. Western economies...

This dissertation uses quantitative dynamic models to study two separate questions in international finance and international labor markets.In Chapter 2, we build a two-country two-good incomplete markets general equilibrium model of international portfolio choice, and use it to study global...

Following the Great Recession, many European countries implemented fiscal consolidation policies aimed at reducing government debt. Using three independent data sources and three different empirical approaches, we document a strong positive relationship between higher income inequality and...

Since 1980 there has been a steady increase in earnings inequality alongside rapid technological growth in the U.S. economy. To what extent does technological change explain the observed increase in earnings dispersion? How does it affect the optimal progressivity of the tax system? To answer...

Since 1980 the U.S. economy has experienced a large increase in income inequality. To explain this phenomenon we develop a life-cycle, overlapping generations model with uninsurable labor market risk, a detailed tax system and investment-specific technological change (ISTC). We calibrate our...