This paper argues that rigid wages cannot provide the underpinnings of a universally valid theory of the business cycle, simply because wages are not universally rigid. Several different statistical techniques suggest that wage rates in the U.K. and Japan are between three and 15 times more...

This paper studies the dynamic behavior of changes in productivity, wages, and prices. Results are based on a new data set that allows a consistent analysis of the aggregate economy, the manufacturing sector, and the nonmanufacturing sector. Results are presented for the U. S., Japan, and an...

Retirement saving accounts, particularly employer-provided 401(k) plans rapidly in the last decade. More than forty percent of workers are currently eligible for thesequot; plans, and over seventy percent of eligibles participate in these plans. The substantial andquot; ongoing accumulation of...

This paper provides three perspectives on long-run growth rates of labor productivity (LP) and of multi-factor productivity (MFP) for the U. S. economy. It extracts statistical growth trends for labor productivity from quarterly data for the total economy going back to 1952, provides new...

This paper develops a new analysis of the U. S. economy in the 1920s that is illuminated by contrasts with the 1990s, and it also re-examines the causes of the Great Depression. In both the 1920s and the 1990s the acceleration of productivity growth linked to the delayed effects of previously...