We use a French firm-level data set containing 13,000 firms over the period 1993-2004 to analyze the relationship between credit constraints and firms' R&D behavior over the business cycle. Our main results can be summarized as follows: (i) the share of R&D investment over total investment is...

To construct models and to apply quantitative techniques in order to explain the cyclical movements of the economy is one of the main aims of “X-Crise” group (nickname of “Centre Polytechnicien d'Etudes Economiques”) at the “Ecole Polytechnique” in Paris. Indeed, french...

This paper studies how income-based, progressive taxes and transfers may reduce aggregate volatility by protecting the economy against expectation-driven business cycles. Eliminating “local” sunspots that are arbitrarily close to an indeterminate steady state requires, for sensible parameter...

Firms devote significant resources to maintain and repair thei existing capital. Within a real business cycle model featuring arguably small aggregate increasing returns, this paper assesses the stabilizing effects of fiscal policies with a maintenance expenditure allowance. In this setup, firms...

This paper is motivated by the rising interest in assessing the effect of disruptions in resources and environmental conditions on economic growth. Such an assessment requires, ultimately, the use of truly integrated models of the climate and economic systems. For these purposes, we have...

In this article, we compare the performance of Hodrickk-Prescott and Baxter-King filters with a method of filtering based on the multi-resolution properties of wavelets. We show that overall the three methods remain comparable if the theoretical cyclical component is defined in the usual...

Over the past two decades, the Maghreb Countries have initiated a liberalization process characterized by increasing trade flows and they have strengthened economic and financial linkages between their economies. In this paper, we demonstrate how co-movements of outputs would respond to this...

In the first section we discuss the Wicksellian origins of Schumpeter's and Hayek's approaches to money and banking in the context of dynamic economic analysis. The second section compares the role played by banks and credit in Schumpeter's and Hayek's explanation of economic fluctuations. We...

The main purpose of this chapter is to assess the originality of Schumpeter's theory of business cycles. The first section outlines the distinctive features of Schumpeter's approach to business cycles and economic dynamics. Section two looks at the mechanisms constituting the cycle in...

This paper analyses the monetary consequences of the Latin-American trade integration process. We consider a sample of five countries -Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay- spanning the period 1991-2007. The main question raised pertains to the feasibility of a monetary union between...