This paper shows the importance of technological synergies among heterogeneous firms for aggregate fluctuations. First, we document six novel empirical facts using microdata that suggest the existence of important technological synergies between trading firms, the presence of positive...

There are significant differences in the dynamics of employment over the business cycle between young and old manufacturing plants. Young plants are more sensitive to aggregate disturbances, and they respond to them along different margins. We interpret these differences as reflecting greater...

We elicit subjective probability distributions from business executives about their own-firm outcomes at a one-year look-ahead horizon. In terms of question design, our key innovation is to let survey respondents freely select support points and probabilities in five-point distributions over...

The volatility of US business cycles has declined during the last two decades. During the same period the financial structure of firms has become more volatile. In this paper we develop a model in which financial factors play a key role in generating economic fluctuations. Innovations in...

This paper uses a database covering the universe of French firms for the period 1990--2007 to provide a forensic account of the role of individual firms in generating aggregate fluctuations. We set up a simple multi-sector model of heterogeneous firms selling to multiple markets to motivate a...

There remains considerable debate in both the theoretical and empirical literature about the differences in the cyclical dynamics of firms by firm size. Some have hypothesized that small firms are more sensitive to cycles while others have posited that larger firms are more sensitive....

Heterogeneous firm models are ubiquitous in modern macroeconomics. We revisit a central feature of these models: the idiosyncratic shock process faced by firms. Using a large representative firm-level dataset, we document nonparametrically that the common assumption, a Gaussian AR(1) shock...

Using a new survey of firms in New Zealand, we document how exogenous variation in the macroeconomic uncertainty perceived by firms affects their economic decisions. We use randomized information treatments that provide different types of information about the first and/or second moments of...

Politicians and regulators rely on feedback from the public when setting policies. For-profit corporations and non-pro t entities are active in this process and are arguably expected to provide independent viewpoints. Policymakers (and the public at large), however, may be unaware of the...