We develop a dynamic factor model with Markov switching to examine secular and business cycle fluctuations in U.S. unemployment rates. We extract the common dynamics among unemployment rates disaggregated for seven age groups. The framework allows analysis of the contribution of demographic...

The U.S. business cycle expansion that started in March 1991 is the longest on record. This paper uses statistical techniques to examine whether this expansion is a onetime unique event or whether its length is a result of a change in the stability of the U.S. economy. Bayesian methods are used...

By historical standards, the U.S. economy has experienced a period of remarkable stability since the mid-1980s. One explanation attributes the diminished variability of economic activity to information-technology-led improvements in inventory management. Our results, however, indicate that the...

This paper proposes a flexible framework for analyzing the joint time series properties of the level and volatility of expected excess stock returns. An unobservable dynamic factor is constructed as a nonlinear proxy for the market risk premia with its first moment and conditional volatility...

We examine inventory adjustment in the U.S. manufacturing sector using quarterly firm-level data over the period 1978-97. Our evidence indicates that the inventory investment process is nonlinear and asymmetric, results consistent with a nonconvex adjustment cost structure. The inventory...

We investigate the implications of capital market imperfections for inventory investment in retail trade, using a new source firm-level data--the micro data underlying the published Quarterly Financial Reports. An error-correction model that includes internal funds and forward-looking...