Australian employers are obliged by law to make a minimum compulsory contribution as a proportion of salaries into employees’ superannuation (pension) funds. Individuals can also make voluntary contributions on top of the compulsory amount. We examine voluntary contributions amongst two groups...

We introduce a fast upper-envelope scan (FUES) method to compute solutions for dynamic programming problems with continuous and discrete choices. The FUES method builds on the standard endogenous grid method (EGM). Standard EGM applied to problems with continuous and discrete choices does not by...

World and U.S. energy intensities have declined over the past century, falling at an average rate of approximately 1.2–1.5 percent a year. The decline has persisted through periods of stagnating or even falling energy prices, suggesting the decline is driven in large part by autonomous...

Recently, macroeconomists have begun to study optimal policy in heterogeneous agent models with incomplete markets, or Aiyagari-Huggett models. A natural way to formulate an optimal policy problem in the model is by using a constrained planner (Davila , 2012), a planner who cannot complete...

This article explores key market design issues to be addressed in future electricity markets dominated by intermittent renewable generation with near zero private marginal costs for generating electricity. Changing technology mixes will change market outcomes, but they do not change the...

How do people save over their lifetime? Using a dynamic lifecycle model of saving and portfolio choice featuring risky labor income, housing, and safe and risky financial assets inside and outside pension plans with comprehensive choice architecture, we examine the behavior of members of an...