How much did fiscal policy contribute to euro area real GDP growth during the Great Recession? We estimate that discretionary fiscal measures have increased annualized quarterly real GDP growth during the crisis by up to 1.6 percentage points. We obtain our result by using an extended version of...

We assess the importance of nominal rigidities using a new weekly scanner dataset. We find that nominal rigidities take the form of inertia in reference prices and costs, defined as the most common prices and costs within a given quarter. Reference prices are particularly inertial and have an...

Hours worked and the return to working are weakly correlated. Traditionally, the ability to account for this fact has been a litmus test for macroeconomic models. Existing real-business-cycle models fail this test dramatically. The authors modify prototypical real-business-cycle models by...

This paper analyzes the role of variable capital-utilization rates in propagating shocks over the business cycle. The model on which the authors' analysis is based treats variable capital-utilization rates as a form of factor-hoarding. They argue that variable capital-utilization rates are a...