Using detailed household-level data from Malawi on physical quantities of outputs and inputs in agricultural production, we measure total factor productivity (TFP) for farms controlling for land quality, rain, and other transitory shocks. We find that operated land size and capital are...

In this paper, we employ both calibration and modern (Bayesian) estimation methods to assess the role of neutral and investment-specific technology shocks in generating fluctuations in hours. Using a neoclassical stochastic growth model, we show how answers are shaped by the identification...

We assess the effects of land markets on misallocation and productivity by exploiting effective variation in land rentals across time and space arising from a large-scale land certification reform in Ethiopia, where land remains owned by the state. Our main finding from detailed micro panel data...

Shimer's calibrated version of the Mortensen-Pissarides model generates unemployment fluctuates much smaller than the data. Hagedorn and Manovskii present an alternative calibration that yields fluctuations consistent with the data, but this has been challenged by Costain and Reiter, who say it...

We develop a life-cycle model of the labor market in which different worker-firm matches have different quality and the assignment of the right workers to the right firms is time consuming because of search and learning frictions. The rate at which workers move between unemployment, employment...

We revisit the hypothesis that cyclical fluctuations in unemployment are caused by shocks to the discount rate. We use a rich search-theoretic model of the labor market in which the UE, EU and EE rates are all endogenous. Analytically, we show that an increase in the discount rate lowers the UE...