We interpret the marginal welfare cost of capital income taxes as the present discounted value of consumption distortions. Such an asset market interpretation emphasizes the importance of the interest rate used to value future distortions, especially in the presence of uncertainty. We find that...

This paper shows that non-convex costs of financial adjustment are quantitatively relevant for explaining firm dynamics. First, empirically, financial activity is lumpy, more than investment activity. Second, non-convex costs are necessary, in the context of a dynamic investment and financing...

The paper studies the impact of an equity transaction tax (ETT) on financial and real variables in a DSGE model with two types of financial frictions: (1) financial intermediaries facing a leverage constraint; (2) noise shocks that lead to the emergence of non-fundamental equity trade. The ETT...

This paper studies the conditions under which an IT revolution may occur and have permanent effects on long-term growth. To this end, we construct a multi-sectoral growth model with endogenous embodied technical progress. The R&D sector expands the range of softwares. The capital sector produces...

This paper develops and estimates a stochastic general equilibrium model with capital maintenance, which affects endogenously the depreciation rate of capital. The estimate of maintenance series is found to track survey-based measures for Canada quite closely and to generate the procyclical...

In this paper we consider the entry and exit of firms in a Ramsey model with capital and an endogenous labour supply. At the firm level, there is a fixed cost combined with increasing marginal cost, which gives a standard U-shaped cost curve with optimal firm size. The costs of entry (exit) are...

The theoretical literature on business cycles predicts a positive investment response to productivity improvements, a prediction we question from theoretical and empirical perspectives. We show that a short-term negative response of investment to a positive technology shock is consistent with a...

We estimate a DSGE model with (S,s) inventory policies. We find that (i) taking inventories into account can significantly improve the empirical fit of DSGE models in matching the standard business-cycle moments (in addition to explaining inventory fluctuations); (ii) (S,s) inventory policies...

Standard real business cycle models are often unable to replicate three empirical facts: positive output in response to good news, stochastic volatility of macro variables, and asymmetric business cycles. This paper proposes a unified basis for understanding these facts in a tractable dynamic...

This paper assesses various capital and labor adjustment costs functions estimating a general equilibrium framework with Bayesian methods using US aggregate data. The estimation finds that the adjustment costs are convex in both capital and labor and allowing for their joint interaction is...