Search Results
Journal Article
New monetary policy tools?
Working Paper
Identifying technology shocks in the frequency domain
Since Gal [1999], long-run restricted VARs have become the standard for identifying the effects of technology shocks. In a recent paper, Francis et al. [2008] proposed an alternative to identify technology as the shock that maximizes the forecast-error variance share of labor productivity at long horizons. In this paper, we propose a variant of the Max Share identification, which focuses on maximizing the variance share of labor productivity in the frequency domain. We consider the responses to technology shocks identified from various frequency bands. Two distinct technology shocks emerge. ...
Working Paper
Heterogeneous firms, productivity and poverty traps
We present a model of endogenous total factor productivity which generates poverty traps. We obtain multiple steady-state equilibria for an arbitrarily small degree of increasing returns to scale. While the most productive firms operate across all the steady states, in a poverty trap less productive firms operate as well. This results in lower average firm productivity and lower total factor productivity. In our model a growth miracle is accompanied by a shift of employment from small to large firms, consistent with the empirical evidence. We calibrate our model and relate entry costs to the ...
Journal Article
Institutional causes of output volatility
The authors investigate the relationship between the quality of institutions and output volatility. Using instrumental variable regressions, they address whether higher entry barriers and lower property rights protection lead to higher volatility. They find that a 1-standard-deviation increase in entry costs increases the standard deviation of output growth by roughly 40 percent of its average value in the sample. In contrast, property rights protection has no statistically significant effect on volatility.
Journal Article
Cross - country productivity growth
Journal Article
Changing trends in the labor force: a survey
The composition of the American workforce has changed dramatically over the past half century as a result of both the emergence of married women as a substantial component of the labor force and an increase in the number of minority workers. The aging of the population has contributed to this change as well. In this paper, the authors review the evidence of changing labor force participation rates, estimate the trends in labor force participation over the past 50 years, and find that aggregate participation has stabilized after a period of persistent increases. Moreover, they examine the ...
Speech
Classic Policy Benchmarks for Economies with Substantial Inequality
St. Louis Fed President Jim Bullard participated on a policy panel during the Annual Conference of the Central Bank of Chile. The topic of the conference was “Heterogeneity in Macroeconomics: Implications for Monetary Policy.”During the panel discussion, Bullard presented "Classic Policy Benchmarks for Economies with Substantial Inequality." In the presentation, he outlined an argument that the contribution of a central bank to optimal macroeconomic policy may not be importantly altered by the presence of heterogeneous households. (He has presented previous versions of these slides at ...