This paper develops a theoretical model to analyse how a General Purpose Technology (GPT) shapes within-group wage inequality when workers are ex-ante equal, but their adaptability to new technologies is subject to stochastic factors that are history dependent. It is argued that the diffusion of...

What shapes the optimal degree of progressivity of the tax and transfer system? On the one hand, a progressive tax system can counteract inequality in initial conditions and substitute for imperfect private insurance against idiosyncratic earnings risk. At the same time, progressivity reduces...

This paper studies the joint dynamics of US output and unemployment rates in a nonlinear VAR model. The nonlinearity is introduced through a feedback variable that endogenously augments the output lags of the VAR in recessionary phases. Sufficient conditions for the ergodicity of the model,...

This paper studies the joint behaviour of inflation and unemployment in Spain over the period 1964–95 in order to estimate dynamic Phillips trade-offs and sacrifice ratios in response to a demand shock. We organize our empirical approach as a structural (albeit eclectic) one. In so doing, we...

This paper uses long-run restrictions on a three-variable system containing output growth, real wage growth and the differenced unemployment rate, to isolate three 'structural' shocks which drove business cycle fluctuations in Spain during 1970-94. These shocks are interpreted as aggregate...

Using Bayesian methods, we estimate a nonlinear DSGE model in which the interest-rate lower bound is occasionally binding. We quantify the size and nature of disturbances that pushed the U.S. economy to the lower bound in late 2008 as well as the contribution of the lower bound constraint to the...