"We analyze optimal monetary policy in an endogenous sticky price model. Similar models with exogenous sticky prices can deliver multiplicity of equilibria. Multiplicity of equilibria is a necessary condition for expectation traps to explain the variation across time and countries of inflation...

In this paper we investigate the relation between the quality of institutions and macroeconomic volatility. Using instrumental variable regressions, we show that higher barriers to entry lead to higher volatility. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in entry costs increases the...

We endogenize total factor productivity in a neoclassical model with increasing returns to scale. We obtain multiple steady-state equilibria with an arbitrarily small degree of increasing returns to scale. While the most productive firms operate across all the steady states, in a poverty trap...

We reassess the convergence properties of the cross-country distribution of income and its determinants using the dataset constructed by Klenow and Rodriguez-Clare (2005) and our updated version of the same data. Consistent with the literature, the ergodic distribution of output per worker...

We analyze optimal discretionary monetary policy in an endogenous sticky prices model. Similar models with exogenous sticky prices can deliver multiple equilibria. This is a necessary condition for the occurrence of expectation traps (when private agents’ expectations determine the equilibrium...

Entry costs vary dramatically across countries. To assess their impact we construct a model with endogenous entry and operation decisions by firms and calibrate it to match the U.S. distribution of firms by age and size. Higher entry costs lead to greater misallocation of productive factors and...

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...

"A defining feature of business cycles is the comovement of inputs at the sectoral level with aggregate activity. Standard models cannot account for this phenomenon. This paper develops and estimates a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model which can account for this key regularity. My...

Recent studies using long-run restrictions question the validity of the technology-driven real business cycle hypothesis. We propose an alternative identi cation that maximizes the contribution of technology shocks to the forecast-error variance of labor productivity at a long, but finite,...