"This paper evaluates the ability of formal rules to establish U.S. business cycle turning point dates in real time. We consider two approaches, a nonparametric algorithm and a parametric Markov-switching dynamic-factor model. In order to accurately assess the real-time performance of these...

"Through their influence on the cross-sectional distribution of productivity across firms and workers, job creation and destruction likely have an impact on the rate at which aggregate productivity changes over time. However, the nature of this effect is not, a priori, clear. While a broad...

Based on a survey questionnaire administered to 1478 R&D labs in the U.S. manufacturing sector in 1994, we find that firms typically protect the profits due to invention with a range of mechanisms, including patents, secrecy, lead time advantages and the use of complementary marketing and...