The Household Point of View: heterogeneity, information failures and distortions

My research interests are centred on how heterogeneous
characteristics influence household decisions and on why
households deviate from the rational, computationally
unconstrained agent paradigm. I want to study US
mortgage refinancing and its role in monetary policy
transmission, by building a model that predicts the total
refinancing in an economy and how it can be attributed to
household heterogeneity. Through the methodological
approach I have chosen, total refinancing is not just the
sum of each household's refinancing decision, but also
depends on the full distribution of household
characteristics. Second, I am currently working on a model
that investigates how people determine their social
behaviour when they are at risk of contracting a disease.
The model is informed by geolocation data, which indicate
that people distort the probability of being infected when
deciding how to behave. Finally, I would like to investigate
the effect of imperfect information on aggregate
consumption dynamics. I want to use relevant data to
extract a measure of agents' information about the goods
available for them to consume and determine their optimal
consumption given this information. I can then test whether
my model reconciles aggregate consumption dynamics,
quantify the cost households incur by consuming with less
information than is available and show how this cost is
allocated across different households.