This paper quantifies the extent of heterogeneity in consumption responses to changes in real interest rates and house prices in the four largest economies in the euro area: France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. We first calibrate a life-cycle incomplete-markets model with a financial asset and...

We present empirical evidence on the heterogeneity in monetary policy transmission across countries with different home ownership rates. We use household-level data together with shocks to the policy rate identified from high-frequency data. We find that housing tenure reacts more strongly to...

Hiring is a costly activity reflecting firms' investment in their workers. Micro-data shows that hiring costs involve production disruption. Thus, cyclical fluctuations in the value of output, induced by price frictions, have consequences for the optimal allocation of hiring activities. We...

This paper characterizes long-run and short-run optimal fiscal policy in the labor selection framework. In a calibrated non-Ramsey decentralized equilibrium, labor market volatility is inefficient. Keeping fixed the structural parameters, the Ramsey government achieves efficient labor market...

This paper investigates the effect of firm-level investment on the levels of income inequality and poverty. Using a sample of firms from 87 countries for the period from 1979 to 2018, we document that firm-level investment is negatively associated with various measures of income inequality. This...

This paper studies the impact of financialization on unemployment in the U.S. We estimate a dynamic multi-equation macro labor model including labor demand, labor supply, wage-setting and capital accumulation equations. Financialization appears as a key determinant of capital accumulation which,...

The 2008 Great Recession was notable in the UK for three things: the enormity of the output shock; the muted unemployment response; and the very slow rate of recovery. We review the literature which finds most of the decline in productivity is within sector and within firm before presenting new...

What role does labor play in firms? market value? We explore this question using a production-based asset pricing model with frictions in the adjustment of both capital and labor. We posit that hiring of labor is akin to investment in capital and that the two interact, with the interaction being...

We study the implications of product market competition and investment for price setting, wage bargaining and thereby for equilibrium unemployment in an economy with product and labour market imperfections. We show that intensified product market competition will reduce equilibrium unemployment,...

In this paper we investigate the dynamic adjustment of labour and capital in German and Dutch firms. The Dutch labour market is characterised by greater flexibility in wages and work arrangements in comparison to Germany. These institutional differences imply that employment dynamics in the two...