This essay surveys the literature on directed search and competitive search equilibrium,
covering theory and a variety of applications. These models share features with traditional …

This paper introduces a new long-run data set based on archival data from historical waves
of the Survey of Consumer Finances. Studying the joint distribution of household income …

The goal of this chapter is to study how, and by how much, household income, wealth, and
preference heterogeneity amplify and propagate a macroeconomic shock. We focus on the …

This essay surveys the literature on directed/competitive search, covering theory and
applications in, eg, labor, housing and monetary economics. These models share features …

This paper uses new data from the PSID to quantify the relative importance of negative
equity versus ability to pay, in driving mortgage defaults between 2009 and 2013. These …

We empirically establish that unemployed individuals maintain significant access to credit
and that upon a layoff, the unconstrained borrow while the constrained default and delever …

We study the dynamic effect of the COVID-19 shock on credit card use in 2020. Local case
incidence had a strong negative effect on credit card spending in the early months of the …

We exploit a natural experiment to provide one of the first measurements of the causal effect
of negative credit information on employment and earnings. We estimate that one additional …

How do consumer credit markets affect the allocation of workers to firms, output, and labour
productivity? We address this question in two steps. First, we use new micro-data to estimate …

I study how initial wealth affects lifetime earnings inequality when labor markets are
frictional. To do this, I construct a model life‐cycle model with search frictions, incomplete …