Chile and Mexico experienced severe economic crises in the early 1980s. This paper analyzes four possible explanations for why Chile recovered much faster than did Mexico. Comparing data from the two countries allows us to rule out a monetarist explanation, an explanation based on falls in real...

Both Chile and Mexico experienced severe economic crises in the early 1980s, but Chile recovered much faster than did Mexico. Using growth accounting and a calibrated dynamic general equilibrium model, we conclude that the crucial determinant of this difference between the two countries was the...

Economies respond differently to aggregate shocks that reduce output. While some countries rapidly recover their pre-crisis trend, others stagnate. Recent studies provide empirical support for a link between aggregate growth and plant dynamics through its effect on productivity: the entry and...

Do sophisticated international financial markets obviate the need for an active union-wide authority to orchestrate fiscal transfers between countries to provide adequate insurance against country-specific economic fluctuations? We argue that they do. Specifically, we show that in a benchmark...

Brazil has had a long period of high inflation. It peaked around 100 percent per year in 1964, decreased until the first oil shock (1973), but accelerated again afterward, reaching levels above 100 percent on average between 1980 and 1994. This last period coincided with severe balance of...

Recent critiques have demonstrated that existing attempts to account for the unemployment volatility puzzle of search models are inconsistent with the procylicality of the opportunity cost of employment, the cyclicality of wages, and the volatility of risk-free rates. We propose a model that is...

We elaborate on the business cycle accounting method proposed by Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2007), clear up some misconceptions about the method, and then apply it to compare the Great Recession across OECD countries as well as to the recessions of the 1980s in these countries. We have four...

Modern business cycle theory focuses on the study of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models that generate aggregate fluctuations similar to those experienced by actual economies. We discuss how this theory has evolved from its roots in the early real business cycle models of the late...

During the Great Recession, regions of the United States that experienced the largest declines in household debt also experienced the largest drops in consumption, employment, and wages. Employment declines were larger in the nontradable sector and for firms that were facing the worst credit...

During the recent U.S. financial crisis, the large decline in aggregate output and labor was accompanied by both a tightening of financial conditions and a large increase in the dispersion of growth rates across firms. The tightened financial conditions manifested themselves as increases in...