Stock return volatility during the Great Depression has been labeled a “volatility puzzle” because the standard …, and Jones; 1990). We investigate the “volatility puzzle” using a new series of building permits, a forward-looking measure … of economic activity. Our results suggest that the volatility of building permit growth largely explains the high level …

This paper investigates the sources of the widely noticed reduction in the volatility of American business cycles since … the mid 1980s. Our analysis of reduced volatility emphasizes the sharp decline in the standard deviation of changes in … of reduced business-cycle volatility. Supply shocks accounted for 80 percent of the volatility of inflation before 1984 …

, and show that it has significant explanatory power for the evolution of macroeconomic volatility. We define "fundamental …" volatility as the volatility that would arise from an economy made entirely of idiosyncratic microeconomic shocks, occurring … different sectors vary over time (in a way we directly measure), while the volatility of those sectors remains constant. We find …

role for credit growth (beyond its role in constructing the inflation forecast) would reduce the volatility of output and …

fraction of labor market adjustment takes place along the intensive margin outside the United States, and that the volatility … of total hours relative to output volatility has increased over time in almost all countries. We use these data to re …

What fraction of the business cycle volatility of government purchases is accounted for as endogenous reactions to … frictionless version of such a model with aggregate productivity as the sole driving force can explain almost all the volatility of …

In a sample of 110 countries over the period 1960-2009, we document a positive relation between the volatility and … with recent theories of financial frictions. The positive relation between volatility and skewness in the cross-section is …