I use microeconomic estimates of the effect of health on individual outcomes to construct macroeconomic estimates of the proximate effect of health on GDP per capita. I employ avariety of methods to construct estimates of the return to health, which I combine with cross-country and historical...

We study the relationship of non-quantitative news to bond prices. We select a set of major news events based solely on their significance as judged by historians, and examine the corresponding bond price movements. We find strong evidence that news has some influence on bond price movements,...

This paper examines changes over time in the importance of the lending channel in the transmission of monetary shocks to the real economy. We first use a simple extension of the Bernanke-Blinder model to isolate the observable factors that affect the strength of the lending channel. We then show...

We examine the role of changing mortality in explaining the rise of retirement over the course of the 20th century. We construct a model in which individuals make labor/leisure choices over their lifetimes subject to uncertainty about their date of death. In an environment in which mortality is...

This paper examines changes over time in the degree to which the resources (human plus nonhuman wealth) of the elderly have been annuitized. Using data from the 1962 and 1983 Federal Reserve Surveys of Consumer Finances we find evidence of an increase in annuitization which is particularly...

This paper examines whether the Solow growth model is consistent with the international variation in the standard of living. It shows that an augmented Solow model that includes accumulation of human as well as physical capital provides an excellent description of the cross-country data. The...

We examine the dynamic interaction of the population age structure, economic dependency, and fertility, paying particular attention to the role of intergenerational transfers. In the short run, a reduction in fertility produces a %u201Cdemographic dividend%u201D that allows for higher...

This paper examines a novel mechanism linking fertility and growth. Household fertility is determined by relative wages of women and men. Increasing women's wages reduces fertility by raising the cost of children relatively more than household income. Lower fertility raises the level of capital...

We examine the creation of Social Security during the Great Depression, and how it has evolved since, asking in particular to what extent the program as it exists today is the same as that created in 1935 and 1939. We find that there has been surprising continuity. Much of the program's growth...

Research on intergenerational transmission of wealth has pointed to uncertainty -- about the date of one's own death, for example -- as a potential source of significant bequest flows. In this paper I examine the effects of this same uncertainty on the behavior of those who expect to receive...