This paper investigates the microeconomic origins of aggregate economic fluctuations inEurope. It examines the relevance of idiosyncratic shocks at the top 100 large firms (thegranular shocks) in explaining aggregate macroeconomic fluctuations. The paper alsoassesses the strength of spillovers...

We show that an increase in aggregate uncertainty-measured by stock market volatility-reduces productivity growth more in industries that depend heavily on external finance. This effect is larger during recessions, when financing constraints are more likely to be binding, than during expansions....

Korea’s economy has leaped to high-income status thanks to several decades of sustained high growth. However, population aging and shifts in global demand provide headwinds for future growth and Korea now faces the effects of COVID-19 on economic activity. This paper asseses the expected drag...

All types of recessions, on average, not just those associated with financial and political crises (as in Cerra and Saxena, AER 2008), lead to permanent output losses. These findings have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. A new paradigm of the business cycle needs to account for...

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as 'hysteresis,' argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and...

We provide broad-based evidence of a firm size premium of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in Europe after the Global Financial Crisis. The TFP growth of smaller firms was more adversely affected and diverged from their larger counterparts after the crisis. The impact was progressively...

While the world is focused on addressing the near-term ramifications of the COVID-19 shock, we turn attention to another important aspect of the pandemic: its fallout on medium-term potential output through scarring. Taking Australia and New Zealand as examples, we show that the pandemic will...

Is over-optimism about a country's future growth perspective good for an economy, or doesover-optimism also come with costs? In this paper we provide evidence that recessions, fiscalproblems, as well as Balance of Payment-difficulties are more likely to arise in countrieswhere past growth...

While Brazil's deep recession has been broad based, it has been marked by a particularlylarge fall in investment. Real investment fell by around 30 percent between the beginningof 2014 and the beginning of 2017. This paper finds that a variety of factors contributed tothe investment decline,...

This paper explores the dynamic relationship between firm debt and real outcomes using data from 24 European economies over the period of 2000-2018. Based on macro data, it shows that a rise in credit to firms is associated with an increase in employment growth in the short-term, but employment...