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Author:Ohanian, Lee E. 

Working Paper
Bad Investments and Missed Opportunities? Capital Flows to Asia and Latin America, 1950-2007

After World War II, international capital flowed into slow-growing Latin America rather than fast-growing Asia. This is surprising as, everything else equal, fast growth should imply high capital returns. This paper develops a capital flow accounting framework to quantify the role of different factor market distortions in producing these patterns. Surprisingly, we find that distortions in labor markets ? rather than domestic or international capital markets ? account for the bulk of these flows. Labor market distortions that indirectly depress investment incentives by lowering equilibrium ...
Working Papers , Paper 2014-38

Discussion Paper
Competition and the Decline of the Rust Belt

The decline of the heavy manufacturing industry in the American ?Rust Belt? is often thought to have begun in the late 1970s, when the United States suffered a significant recession. But theory suggests, and data support, that the Rust Belt?s decline started in the 1950s when the region?s dominant industries faced virtually no product or labor competition and therefore had little incentive to innovate or become more productive. As foreign imports increased and manufacturing shifted to the American South, the Rust Belt?s share of manufacturing jobs and total jobs declined dramatically. ...
Economic Policy Paper , Paper 14-6

Working Paper
Bretton Woods and the Reconstruction of Europe

The Bretton Woods international financial system, which was in place from roughly 1949 to 1973, is the most significant modern policy experiment to attempt to simultaneously manage international payments, international capital flows, and international currency values. This paper uses an international macroeconomic accounting methodology to study the Bretton Woods system and finds that it: (1) significantly distorted both international and domestic capital markets and hence the accumulation and allocation of capital; (2) significantly slowed the reconstruction of Europe, albeit while limiting ...
Working Papers , Paper 2019-30

Journal Article
Are Phillips curves useful for forecasting inflation?

This study evaluates the conventional wisdom that modern Phillips curve-based models are useful tools for forecasting inflation. These models are based on the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (the NAIRU). The study compares the accuracy, over the last 15 years, of three sets of inflation forecasts from NAIRU models to the naive forecast that at any date inflation will be the same over the next year as it has been over the last year. The conventional wisdom is wrong; none of the NAIRU forecasts is more accurate than the naive forecast. The likelihood of accurately predicting a ...
Quarterly Review , Volume 25 , Issue Win , Pages 2-11

Journal Article
Commentary on \\"Model fit and model selection\\"

Review , Volume 89 , Issue Jul , Pages 361-370

Working Paper
Dynamic equilibrium economies: a framework for comparing models and data

The authors propose a constructive, multivariate framework for assessing agreement between (generally misspecified) dynamic equilibrium models and data, which enables a complete second-order comparison of the dynamic properties of models and data. They use bootstrap algorithms to evaluate the significance of deviations between models and data, and they use goodness-of-fit criteria to produce estimators that optimize economically relevant loss functions. The authors provide a detailed illustrative application to modeling the U.S. cattle cycle.
Working Papers , Paper 97-7

Report
Capital-skill complementarity and inequality: a macroeconomic analysis

The notion of skilled-biased technological change is often held responsible for the recent behavior of the U.S. skill premium, or the ratio between the wages of skilled and unskilled labor. This paper develops a framework for understanding this notion in terms of observable variables and uses the framework to evaluate the fraction of the skill premium's variation that is caused by changes in observables. A version of the neoclassical growth model is used in which the key feature of aggregate technology is capital-skill complementarity: the elasticity of substitution is higher between capital ...
Staff Report , Paper 239

Journal Article
Back to the future with Keynes

This article analyzes Keynes's "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren"- an essay presenting Keynes's views about economic growth into the 21st century - from the perspective of modern growth theory. I find that the implicit theoretical framework used by Keynes to form his expectations about the 21st-century world economy is remarkably close to modern growth models, featuring a stable steady-state growth path driven by technological progress. On the other hand, Keynes's forecast of employment in the 21st century is far off the mark, reflecting a mistaken view that the income ...
Quarterly Review , Issue Jul , Pages 10-16

Journal Article
The Great Depression in the United States from a neoclassical perspective

Can neoclassical theory account for the Great Depression in the United States?both the downturn in output between 1929 and 1933 and the recovery between 1934 and 1939? Yes and no. Given the large real and monetary shocks to the U.S. economy during 1929?33, neoclassical theory does predict a long, deep downturn. However, theory predicts a much different recovery from this downturn than actually occurred. Given the period?s sharp increases in total factor productivity and the money supply and the elimination of deflation and bank failures, theory predicts an extremely rapid recovery that ...
Quarterly Review , Volume 23 , Issue Win , Pages 2-24

Discussion Paper
Accounting for the Great Recession

Economic Policy Paper , Paper 11-1

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