We document a novel role of heterogeneity in price rigidity: It strongly amplifies the capacity of idiosyncratic shocks to drive aggregate fluctuations. Heterogeneity in price rigidity also completely changes the identity of sectors from which fluctuations originate. We show these results both...

We study the aggregate implications of sectoral shocks in a multi-sector New Keynesian model featuring sectoral heterogeneity in price stickiness, sector size, and input-output linkages. We calibrate a 341 sector version of the model to the United States. Both theoretically and empirically,...

Using a German firm-level data set, this paper is the first to jointly study the cyclical properties of the cross-sections of firm-level real value added and Solow residual innovations, as well as capital and employment adjustment. We find two new business cycle facts: 1) The cross-sectional...

Is time-varying firm-level uncertainty a major cause or amplifier of the business cycle? This paper investigates this question in the context of a heterogeneous-firm RBC model with persistent firm-level productivity shocks and lumpy capital adjustment, where cyclical changes in uncertainty...

This paper investigates how financial market imperfections and the frequency of price adjustment interact. Based on new firm-level evidence for Germany, we document that financially constrained firms adjust prices more often than their unconstrained counterparts, both upwards and downwards. We...

We assess empirically the micro-foundations of producers' sticky pricing behaviour. The intertemporal profit function considered accounts for various functional forms of menu costs. The focus is on the analysis of multiproduct plants, and the menu costs therefore also allow for economies of...

Existing micro evidence of firms' price changes tends to show a downward sloping hazard rate – the longer the price of a product has remained the same, the less likely it is that the price will change. Using a panel of Norwegian plant- and product-specific prices, we also find a downward...

In a VAR model of the US, the response of the relative price of durables to a monetary contraction is either flat or mildly positive. It significantly falls only if narrowly defined as the ratio between new house and nondurables prices. These findings survive three identification strategies and...

We document that trust in public institutions — and particularly trust in banks, business and government — has declined over recent years. U.S. time series evidence suggests that this partly reflects the pro-cyclical nature of trust in institutions. Cross-country comparisons reveal a clear...

We provide a framework for inference in dynamic equilibrium models including financial market data at daily frequency, along with macro series at standard lower frequency. Our formulation of the macro-finance model in continuous-time conveniently accounts for the difference in observation...