Search Results
Working Paper
Worker flows and job flows: a quantitative investigation
This paper studies the quantitative properties of a multiple-worker firm matching model with on-the-job search where heterogeneous firms operate decreasing-returns-to-scale production technology. We focus on the model's ability to replicate the business cycle features of job flows, worker flows between employment and unemployment, and job-to-job transitions. The calibrated model successfully replicates (i) countercyclical worker flows between employment and unemployment, (ii) procyclical job-to-job transitions, and (iii) opposite movements of job creation and destruction rates over the ...
Working Paper
Doves for the Rich, Hawks for the Poor? Distributional Consequences of Systematic Monetary Policy
We build a New Keynesian business-cycle model with rich household heterogeneity. In the model, systematic monetary stabilization policy affects the distribution of income, income risks, and the demand for funds and supply of assets: the demand, because matching frictions render idiosyncratic labor-market risk endogenous; the supply, because markups, adjustment costs, and the tax system mean that the average profitability of firms is endogenous. Disagreement about systematic monetary stabilization policy is pronounced. The wealth-rich or retired tend to favor inflation targeting. The ...
Working Paper
A tale of two commitments: equilibrium default and temptation
I construct the life-cycle model with equilibrium default and preferences featuring temptation and self-control. The model provides quantitatively similar answers to positive questions such as the causes of the observed rise in debt and bankruptcies and macroeconomic implications of the 2005 bankruptcy reform, as the standard model without temptation. However, the temptation model provides contrasting welfare implications, because of overborrowing when the borrowing constraint is relaxed. Specifically, the 2005 bankruptcy reform has an overall negative welfare effect, according to the ...
Journal Article
The redistributive consequences of monetary policy
Monetary policy is not intended to benefit one segment of the population at the expense of another by redistributing income and wealth. But as Makoto Nakajima explains, it is probably impossible to avoid such redistributive consequences.
Journal Article
Taxing The 1 Percent
Raising taxes on top earners is often seen as a straightforward way to stem inequality. The trick is preserving efficient revenue generation and work incentives for the economy?s most productive contributors.
Working Paper
Health-care reform or labor market reform? a quantitative analysis of the Affordable Care Act
An equilibrium model with ?rm and worker heterogeneity is constructed to analyze labor market and welfare implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Our model implies a signi?cant reduction in the uninsured rate from 22.6 percent to 5.6 percent. {{p}} The model predicts a moderate positive welfare gain from the ACA, due to redistribution of income through Health Insurance Subsidies at the Exchange as well as Medicaid expansion. About 2.1 million more part-time jobs are created under the ACA, in expense of 1.6 million full-time jobs, mainly because the link between ...
Working Paper
Home equity withdrawal in retirement
The authors study empirically and theoretically the patterns of home equity withdrawal among retirees, using a model in which retirees are able to own or rent a home, save, and borrow against home equity, in the face of idiosyncratic risks concerning mortality, health, medical expenditures, and household size and observed house price changes. The estimated model is found to successfully replicate the patterns of homeownership and the saving/borrowing decisions of retirees. They use the estimated model for several counterfactual experiments. There are three main findings. First, the model ...
Working Paper
Rising indebtedness and temptation: a welfare analysis
Is the observed large increase in consumer indebtedness since 1970 beneficial for U.S. consumers? This paper quantitatively investigates the macroeconomic and welfare implications of relaxing borrowing constraints using a model with preferences featuring temptation and self-control. The model can capture two contrasting views: the positive view, which links increased indebtedness to financial innovation and thus better consumption smoothing, and the negative view, which is associated with consumers' over-borrowing. The author finds that the latter is sizable: the calibrated model implies a ...
Working Paper
A quantitative theory of unsecured consumer credit with risk of default
The authors study, theoretically and quantitatively, the general equilibrium of an economy in which households smooth consumption by means of both a riskless asset and unsecured loans with the option to default. The default option resembles a bankruptcy filing under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Competitive financial intermediaries offer a menu of loan sizes and interest rates wherein each loan makes zero profits. They prove the existence of a steady-state equilibrium and characterize the circumstances under which a household defaults on its loans. They show that their model accounts ...
Working Paper
Monetary Policy with Racial Inequality
I develop a heterogeneous-agent New-Keynesian model featuring racial inequality in income and wealth, and studies interactions between racial inequality and monetary policy. Black and Hispanic workers gain more from accommodative monetary policy than White workers mainly due to higher labor market risks. Their gains are larger also because of a larger proportion of them are hand-to-mouth, while wealthy White workers gain more from asset price appreciation. Monetary and fiscal policies are substitutes in providing insurance against cyclical labor market risks. Racial minorities gain even more ...