Working Papers 

• The Spatial and Distributive Implications of Working-from-home: a General Equilibrium Model   (Job market paper)

Abstract:   I study the impact of the recent rise in remote work on households' consumption, wealth and housing decisions, examining both short-run and long-run effects. Using detailed UK property-level housing data and a heterogeneous agent model with endogenous housing tenure and city geography, I show that remote work shifts housing demand by increasing the taste for space and reducing commuting costs. It affects where people live in the city and their housing wealth accumulation. The effects vary by access to remote work, income, and wealth.  The rise in work-from-home can be compared to a city-wide gentrification shock as wealthy telecommuters opt for larger suburban homes, displacing marginal owners who turn to renting. In the long-run, work-from-home leads to the rise of a tele-premium and consumption inequality increases. 

• Durable Consumption during the Great Recession: the Role of Ex-ante Heterogeneity

Abstract: Durable consumption is one of the main driver of business cycle volatility, and understanding its interaction with employment and income risk is key to study amplification mechanisms. This paper assesses the role of types of labour contract on households’ durable consumption. It starts by presenting novel empirical evidence from  Bank of Italy's Survey of Households Income and Wealth. Over the Great Recession, Italian households' car purchases contracted strongly along the intensive and the extensive margins. However this drop was much larger for workers employed with fixed-term contracts than for permanent contract holders. I then build and calibrate a structural model of households’ saving and consumption behaviour augmented with types of contract in order to pin down the drivers of durable consumption's contraction along the intensive and the extensive margins, and for each type of contract. The results show that the decline in the intensive margin of car purchases is the result of actual income losses, while the drop in the extensive margin is driven by risk related mechanisms which differ by type of contract. Workers employed with permanent contracts adopt a "wait-and-see" strategy, while workers in fixed-term employment adopt a "wait-to-downgrade" approach. These risk related mechanisms have very different implications for the persistence of durables' demand contraction. 

• Winners and Losers from Monetary Policy: Evidence from the UK Rental Market  with Thomas Lazarowicz (preliminary)

Abstract: This paper estimates the heterogenous effects of monetary policy across a novel dimension, housing tenure. Using microdata from one of the UK’s largest property rental and sales websites, we show that a contractionary shock to the policy rate leads to 1) an increase in rental prices and simultaneously 2) a fall in house prices. The granular microdata also allows us to demonstrate that a contractionary shock leads to a decrease in the listing rate of rental properties, suggesting that this heterogenous response across rents and house prices is not solely driven by household tenure decisions, but also by a rental supply channel. 

Work In Progress 

• Fiscal Policy with Heterogeneity in Durable Consumption with Albert Hidalgo-Higueras and Ralph Luetticke

Abstract: The recent HANK literature reassesses fiscal and monetary policy with heterogeneity in MPCs. This is typically done in a model with only non-durable consumption, and the evidence on MPCs is interpreted through this lens. However, most of the heterogeneity in MPCs stems from differences in the choice of durable consumption. This paper builds a HANK model with durable and non-durable consumption that is consistent with the novel evidence of heterogeneity in the marginal propensity to consume durables and, importantly, heterogeneity in inter-temporal substitution in durables. We use the model to study the effects and transmission of fiscal policy, investigating if durables increase the state dependence of fiscal policy (i.e. is fiscal policy less effective in recessions because households delay purchases of durables?). Additionally, we look at whether the importance of durables increases the need for fiscal and monetary policy coordination.