Search Results
Journal Article
Is increasing wealth a substitute for saving?
Journal Article
The FOMC in 1997: a real conundrum
Although the economic performance of the U.S. economy in 1997 was very good, it was troubling in at least one respect for the Federal Open Market Committee. Traditional signals of inflation - rapid money growth and high levels of economic activity - were not accompanied by higher inflation. Rather, inflation fell steadily throughout the year. The committee put forth several hypotheses for the subdued inflation but found the situation puzzling, nevertheless. Compounding the problem, members did not know how long such dampening factors might last. In the end the FOMC changed the intended ...
Journal Article
The tax man cometh: consumer spending and tax payments
Journal Article
Capacity utilization and prices within industries
Journal Article
Charging up a mountain of debt: accounting for the growth of credit card debt
Total U.S. credit card debt has almost doubled since 1988. Little is apparent from the aggregate data, however, about the composition of credit card debt growth. In this article, Peter S. Yoo separates household data into two categories: changes in the number of households with credit cards, and changes in average credit card debt for increased total credit card debt. Moreover, he finds that the principal contributors to the increase are households with above-average incomes rather than low-income households.
Journal Article
Boom or bust? the economic effects of the baby boom
Working Paper
Population growth and asset prices
This paper explores the theoretical relationship between the population growth rate and asset prices implied by an overlapping-generations model. The model shows that changes in a population's age distribution affect asset prices but such changes generate low frequency movements in asset prices. The model also shows that the treatment of expectations matter; a small response of individuals to changes in asset prices has large implications for the path of asset prices. Finally, the model shows that incorporating a supply of assets by interpreting an asset as a claim on physical capital ...
Working Paper
Charging up a mountain of debt: households and their credit cards.
I use the Surveys of Consumer Finances conducted in 1983, 1989 and 1992 to separate the growth of credit card debt into two categories, changes in the number of households with credit cards and changes in households credit card debt. I can then account for the relative contributions of increases in credit card availability, number of households, and average credit card debt. I also use the household income information to quantify the impact of more lower income households with credit cards. Data suggest that the increases in credit card debt is largely attributable to increased average credit ...
Working Paper
The baby boom and international capital flows
This paper presents a model of economic growth based on the life-cycle hypothesis to determine the path of international capital flows as the baby boom passes through the U.S. economy. The model predicts that a baby boom causes a temporary increase in capital flow into the U.S. but the increase in capital is not sufficient to maintain the capital-labor ratio in the U.S. The baby boom increases saving in the U.S. but decreases the saving abroad due to the higher world interest rates.
Working Paper
The baby boom and economic growth
This paper presents a model of economic growth based on the life-cycle hypothesis to determine the path of capital accumulation and economic growth as the baby boom passes through the U.S. economy. The model predicts that a baby boom causes a temporary decline of the capital-labor ratio. The temporary drop of the capital-labor ratio requires a decrease in consumption per capita but as the baby boom generation nears retirement, capital intensity increases, which raises output per worker and per capita consumption. Furthermore, and perhaps counter intuitively, the model predicts that the saving ...