• Job Market Paper: Bailing Out Homeowners: Government Aid and Mortgage Default after Natural Disasters [Draft] 

Abstract: Natural disasters destroy substantial parts of homeowners' wealth and often prompt large-scale government aid. This aid might crowd out private disaster insurance. However, homeowners already hold implicit insurance through the option to default on mortgages, which alone lowers private insurance demand and creates scope for government intervention. To quantify the welfare effects of post-disaster government aid—specifically, rebuilding grants and foreclosure moratoria, I develop a structural general equilibrium model. The model embeds natural disaster shocks within an incomplete-markets framework featuring two degrees of mortgage default: delinquency and foreclosure.  Calibrated to the U.S. economy over 2000-2020, the model yields three main results. First, existing government aid increases the share of uninsured losses by 36pp and expands owner-occupied housing in disaster-prone areas by 14% relative to a no-aid scenario. Second, government aid generates aggregate welfare gains of 0.25% in consumption-equivalent terms, concentrated among households in high-risk regions. Third, for the same fiscal cost, the largest welfare gains arise when rebuilding transfers are provided independently of insurance coverage, as this reduces crowding out of private disaster insurance.

• Limited Downsizing of Empty-Nesters: Elderly Housing Concentration and Fertility
  (joint with Ursula Berresheim) [Draft]

Abstract: The United States faces record-low fertility rates amid persistently high housing costs and a constrained housing supply. One key factor aggravating this challenge might be the limited downsizing of Baby Boomers, which amplifies housing scarcity---an issue likely to intensify as demographic shifts expand the shares of individuals in their mid-30s and 60s. This paper investigates the link between low fertility and the high concentration of housing wealth among older cohorts. In the U.S. context, we document a strong association between low fertility and both, high housing concentration among the elderly and low housing supply elasticity. To quantify the role of underlying mechanisms, we develop a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility and housing decisions. The model highlights how down payment constraints, housing transaction costs, and bequest motives jointly exacerbate housing-market tensions. Liquidity constraints among young households emerge as a key driver of low housing consumption-and, consequently, low fertility-while bequest motives and transaction costs explain the limited downsizing observed among the elderly. Policy counterfactuals reveal that while moving subsidies have only minor but negative effects on fertility, reducing property taxes meaningfully lowers elderly housing concentration and raises fertility.

• 5th WE_ARE_IN Macroeconomics and Finance Conference (Poster Session), October 20-21, 2025 in Frankfurt 

• Theories and Methods in Macro (T2M), May 22-23, 2025 in Paris

• Seminar Presentation at Toulouse School of Economics, May 26, 2025 in Toulouse 

• Discussant at 6th Workshop on Household Finance and Housing, June 2025 in London

• 40th meeting of the European Economic Association, August 2025 in Bordeaux