We study the welfare implications of uncertainty in business cycle models. In the modern business cycle literature, multiplicative real shocks to production and/or preferences play an important role as the impulses that produce aggregate fluctuations. Introducing shocks in this way has the...

We estimate a New-Neoclassical Synthesis business cycle model with two investment shocks. The first, an investment-specific technology shock, affects the transformation of consumption into investment goods and is identified with the relative price of investment. The second shock affects the...

This paper estimates and simulates a sticky-price dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with a financial accelerator, a la Bernanke, Gertler, and Gilchrist (1999), to assess the importance of the financial accelerator mechanism in fitting the data and its role in the amplification and...

We study the underground economy within a dynamic and stochastic general equilibrium framework. Our model combines limited tax enforcement with an otherwise standard two-sector neoclassical stochastic growth model. The Bayesian estimation of the model based on Italian data provides evidence in...

In this paper, I extend the Barro-Becker model of endogenous fertility to incorporate specific fiscal policies and use it to study the effects of the fiscal policy changes following WWII on fertility in the United States. The US government went through large changes in fiscal policy after the...

More advanced technologies demand higher degrees of specialization - and longer chains of production connecting raw inputs to final outputs. Longer production chains are subject to a "weakest link" effect: they are more fragile and more prone to failure. Optimal chain length is determined by the...

A dynamic general equilibrium model is constructed to examine the impact of mass immigration on capital accumulation in life-cycle economies. The model is calibrated to match Canadian demographic characteristics over 1861-1913. This was a period when Canada experienced a dramatic shift in...

This paper presents evidence that the spread between the marginal product of capital and the return on financial assets is mich higher in poor than in rich countries. A model with costly intermediation is developed. In this economy, individuals choose at each instant whether to work or to...

Despite being the standard growth model for several decades, little is actually known analytically about the dynamic properties of the neoclassical Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans growth model. This papers derives analytically the properties of the endogenous savings rate when technology takes the Constant...