Interindustry wage differentials in wage regressions estimated for individuals have been interpreted as evidence consistent with efficiency wage models. A principal competing explanation is that these differentials are generated by differences across workers in unobserved ability. This paper...

This paper models and tests the implications of costly enforcement of property rights on the pattern of foreign direct investment (FDI). We posit that domestic agents have a comparative advantage over foreign agents in overcoming some of the obstacles associated with corruption and weak...

We show how size-contingent laws can be used to identify the equilibrium and welfare effects of labor regulation. Our framework incorporates such regulations into the Lucas (1978) model and applies this to France where many labor laws start to bind on firms with exactly 50 or more employees....

In the 1970s, large increases in the price of oil were associated with sharp decreases in output and large increases in inflation. In the 2000s, and at least until the end of 2007, even larger increases in the price of oil were associated with much milder movements in output and inflation. Using...

We construct a utility-based model of fluctuations, with nominal rigidities and unemployment, and draw its implications for the unemployment-inflation tradeoff and for the conduct of monetary policy.lt;brgt;lt;brgt;We proceed in two steps. We first leave nominal rigidities aside. We show that,...

Many economists suspect that downward nominal wage rigidities in ongoing labor contracts are an important source of employment fluctuations over the business cycle but there is little direct empirical evidence on this conjecture. This paper compares three occupations in the housing sector with...

Macroeconomic models often incorporate some form of wage stickiness to help account for employment fluctuations. However, a recent literature calls in to question this approach, citing evidence of new hire wage cyclicality from panel data studies as evidence for contractual wage flexibility for...

This paper tests for downward nominal wage rigidity by examining transitory shifts in labor demand, generated by rainfall shocks, in 600 Indian districts from 1956-2009. Nominal wages rise in response to positive shocks but do not fall during droughts. In addition, transitory positive shocks...

We explore the importance of the nature of nominal price and wage adjustment for the design of effective monetary policy strategies, especially at the zero lower bound. Our analysis suggests that sticky-price and sticky-information models fit standard macroeconomic time series comparably well....

This paper examines the ability of a simple stylized general equilibrium model that incorporates nominal wage rigidity to explain the magnitude and persistence of the Great Depression in the United States. The impulses to our analysis are money supply shocks. The Taylor contracts model is...