In this paper we study the quantitative properties of alternative social security regimes in a large overlapping generations model where households face uninsurable idiosyncratic income shocks. We study this issue in two model economies. The first is the standard one characterized by exogenous...

This paper quantifies the size of precautionary savings implied by a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents when explicitly considering the labor supply decision of households. I find that precautionary savings are smaller than if they were measured by use of a model economy...

I construct a heterogeneous agents economy that mimics the time-series behavior of the US earnings distribution from 1963 to 2003. Agents face aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks and accumulate real and financial assets. I estimate the shocks driving the model using data on income inequality, on...

This paper studies a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium life-cycle model where parents and their children are linked by bequests, both voluntary and accidental, and by the transmission of earnings ability. This model is able to match very well the empirical observation that households with...

We explore the accumulation of assets in the presence of limited insurance against idiosyncratic shocks, borrowing constraints and endogenous labor productivity due to the so-called "nutrition curve". We show that in such an environment, any stationary equilibrium is characterized by a polarized...

This paper studies the consequences of capital markets liberalization for global imbalances (non-zero foreign asset positions) when countries are heterogeneous in the degree of financial market development. Countries characterized by more advanced financial markets tend to accumulate large...

International capital flows have increased dramatically since the 1980s, with much of the increase being due to trade in equity and debt markets. Such developments are often attributed to the increased integration of world financial markets. We present a model that allows us to examine how...

Through marriage, individuals can share some risks that would otherwise be uninsurable. In this paper, we ask how much idiosyncratic income risk can be diversified away through marriage contracts alone versus how much risk there remains for public unemployment insurance programs to alleviate. We...

The neoclassical growth model is augmented to study the macroeconomic effects of uninsured idiosyncratic investment risk. As compared to complete markets, the steady state is characterized by both a lower interest rate and a lower capital stock when the elasticity of intertemporal substitution...

This paper examines how policies affect people's welfare during business cycles when markets are incomplete. In particular, we analyze cyclical policies such as cyclical taxation and cyclical unemployment insurance. Those policies play two roles: smoothing the income (and consumption) process...