We revisit the "puzzle" in open economy studies that evidence of international risk-sharing is hardly seen despite the completeness of the financial market. We reassess both risk-pooling via state-contingent bonds, and uncovered interest parity - both were believed to be different, and...

Ordinary consumer price indices customarily overstate increases in the cost of living because they do not allow for consumer substitution as relative prices change. This study looks for a more accurate measure of variations in the cost of living in Argentina over the years 1960 to 1995, taking...

The paper investigates the role of the real exchange rate in international risk sharing relationships. The real exchange rate introduces a wedge between real marginal utilities of consumption in different countries and this wedge plays a prominent role in a number of new theories of...

In an urban economy, the distribution of people and real estate prices depends on the location of the central business district of a city. As distance from the city center increases, both prices and population density diminish, for travel costs increase in terms of time and money. As...

This paper computes a quality adjusted price index for the personal computer CPU from 1996 to 2000. The index is based on the pure characteristics demand model. I first compute the quality adjusted price index for the whole market, and show that it is very comparable with the hedonic price index...

The Boskin report (1996) concluded that the US consumer price index (CPI) overestimated the inflation by 1.1 percentage points. This was due to several measurement errors in the CPI. One of them is called quality change bias. We compare two methods in this paper which can be used to correct for...

Economic interdependence of heterogeneous habit forming consumers is examined by using a two-country model. Due to endogenous interest rate adjustments, consumption-habit dynamics in one country are affected by the other country’s habits and preferences. To characterize the interactive...

In this paper we examine the effects of two types of information imperfections, robustness (RB) and finite information-processing capacity (called rational inattention or RI), on international consumption correlations in an otherwise standard small open economy model. We show that in the...