Recent empirical work finds that R&D expenditures are quite procyclical, even for firms that are not credit-constrained during downturns. This has been taken as strong evidence against Schumpeterian-style theories of business cycles that emphasize the idea that downturns in production may be...

This paper uses a tractable macroeconomic model with idiosyncratic human capital risk and incomplete markets to analyze the growth and welfare effects of business cycles. The analysis is based on the assumption that the elimination of business cycles eliminates the variation in idiosyncratic...

The papers in this volume study nine depressions - both from the interwar period in Europe and America and from more recent times and Latin America - using a common framework. All of the papers rely on growth accounting to decompose changes in output into the portions due to changes in factor...

This paper considers transition dynamics associated with a change in the rate of technological progress, using a general equilibrium framework that incorporates stochastic technology growth trends. The model suggests that these dynamics are associated with protracted transition periods,...

Argentina suffered a depression in the 1980s that was as severe as the Great Depression experienced in the United States and Germany in the interwar period. Our paper examines this depression from the perspective of growth theory, taking total factor productivity as exogenous. The predictions of...

This paper construct a two-sector model of two-period lived overlapping generations with endogenous occupational choice where ability-heterogeneous agents choose whether to become educated when young. We show that the steady-state equilibrium can be locally indeterminate even under linear...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) significantly altered how business income is taxed in the US. This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the distributional and macroeconomic effects of the TCJA, both in the short run and in the long run, using a life-cycle model with occupational choice...

This paper studies the effects of asymmetries in re-election probabilities across parties on public policy and their subsequent propagation to the economy. The struggle between groups that disagree on targeted public spending (e.g., pork) results in governments being endogenously short-sighted:...

Since 1914, the U.S. Senate has been elected and incumbent senators allowed to run for reelection without limit. This differs from several other elected offices in the U.S., which impose term limits on incumbents. Term limits may harm the electorate if tenure is beneficial or if they force high...

We study a dynamic model where growth requires both long-term investment and the selection of talented managers. When ability is not ex-ante observable and contracts are incomplete, managerial selection imposes a cost, as managers facing the risk of being replaced choose a sub-optimally low...