Household Debt and Income Inequality, 1963–2003
构建了一个异质性代理人模型，模拟1963至2003年美国收入分配的时序变化，发现收入不平等加剧是解释家庭债务长期上升的关键因素，而经济周期只能解释短期波动。
I construct an economy with heterogeneous agents that mimics the time‐series behavior of the earnings distribution in the United States from 1963 to 2003. Agents face aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks and accumulate real and financial assets. I estimate the shocks that drive the model using data on income inequality, aggregate income, and measures of financial liberalization. I show how the model economy can replicate two empirical facts: the trend and cyclical behavior of household debt and the diverging patterns in consumption and wealth inequality over time. While business cycle fluctuations can account for the short‐run changes in household debt, its prolonged rise of the 1980s and the 1990s can be quantitatively explained only by the concurrent increase in income inequality.