This paper considers self-enforcing trade agreements among privately informed governments. A trade agreement that uses weak bindings (i.e., maximal tariff levels) is shown to offer advantages relative to a trade agreement that uses strong bindings (i.e., precise tariff levels). Consistent with...

This paper explains the divergent behavior of European and US unemployment rates using a job market matching model of the labor market with an interaction between shocks and institutions. It shows that a reduction in TFP growth rates, an increase in real interest rates, and an increase in tax...

This paper evaluates a class of endogenous job destruction models based on how well they explain the observed experiences of displaced workers. We show that pure reallocation models in which relationship-specific productivity drifts downward over time are difficult to reconcile with the evidence...

This paper considers the efficiency of financial intermediation and the propagation of business cycle shocks in a model of long-term relationships between entrepreneurs and lenders lenders may be constrained in their short-run access to liquidity. When liquidity is low, relationships are subject...

This paper develops a theoretical framework for analyzing contracting imperfections in long-term employment relationships. We focus chiefly on limited enforceability and limited worker liquidity. Inefficient severance of employment relationships, payment of efficiency wages, the relative...

We develop and quantitatively implement a dynamic general equilibrium model with labor" market matching and endogenous job destruction. The model produces a close match with data on" job creation and destruction. Cyclical fluctuations in the job destruction rate serve to magnify the" effects of...

This paper presents empirical evidence against the standard dichotomy in macroeconomics that separates growth from the volatility of economic fluctuations. In a sample of 92 countries as well as a sample of OECD countries, we find that countries with higher volatility have lower growth. The...

When firms must make technology commitments, economic fluctuations impose costs in the form of ex post inefficiency in production technology. We present a general equilibrium model in which, due to the presence of technology commitment, greater volatility of productivity shocks leads to lower...

After three decades of decline, the amount of time spent by parents on childcare in the U.S. began to rise dramatically in the mid-1990s. Moreover, the rise in childcare time was particularly pronounced among college-educated parents. Why would highly educated parents increase the amount of time...

We describe recent work on the theory of trade agreements that speaks to the purpose and design of GATT. Our discussion proceeds in three steps. First, we examine the purpose of a trade agreement. In both the traditional economic and the political-economy approaches to the study of trade...