Multi-countru models have not been very successful in replicating features of the international transmission of business cycles. Standard models predict cross-country correlations of output and consumption which are respectively too low and loo high. In this paper, we built a multi-country model...

Modern Business cycle theory involves developing models that explain stylized facts. For this strategy to be success, these facts should be we established. In this paper, we focus on the stylized facts of international business cycles.

Recent empirical evidence from vector autoregressions (VARs) suggests that public spending shocks increase (crowd in) private consumption. Standard general equilibrium models predict the opposite. We show that a standard real business cycle (RBC) model in which public spending is chosen...

ours worked by individuals with a college degree (skilled workers) since the mid-1980’s. Using the CPS outgoing rotation data set for the period 1979:1-2003:4, we find that the volatility of aggregate skilled hours relative to the volatility of GDP has nearly tripled since 1984. In contrast,...