We build a model of the U.S. economy with multiple aggregate shocks (income, housing finance conditions, and beliefs about future housing demand) that generate fluctuations in equilibrium house prices. Through a series of counterfactual experiments, we study the housing boom and bust around the...

Over the period 1972-1986, the correlations of GDP, employment and investment between the United States and an aggregate of Europe, Canada and Japan were respectively 0.76, 0.66, and 0.63. For the period 1986 to 2000 the same correlations were much lower: 0.26, 0.03 and -0.07 (real...

We assess the degree of consumption smoothing implicit in a calibrated life-cycle version of the standard incomplete-markets model, and we compare it to the empirical estimates of Blundell et al. (2008) (BPP hereafter). We find that households in the model have access to less...

"We assess the degree of consumption smoothing implicit in a calibrated life-cycle version of the standard incomplete-markets model, and we compare it to the empirical estimates of Blundell et al. (2008) (BPP hereafter). We find that households in the model have access to less...