The New Keynesian Phillips Curve is at the center of two raging empirical debates. First,vhow can purely forward looking pricing account for the observed persistence in aggregate inflation. Second, price-setting responds to movements in marginal costs, which should therefore be the driving force...

We use portfolio theory to quantify the efficiency of state-level sectoral patterns of production in the United States. On the basis of observed growth in sectoral value added output, we calculate for each state the efficient frontier for investments in the real economy, the efficient Sharpe...

Growth and volatility correlate negatively across countries, but positively across sectors. Analytically, whether or not sectoral growth and volatility are correlated positively is irrelevant in the aggregate. Cross-country estimates identify the detrimental e¤ects of macroeconomic volatility...

The authors revisit the debt overhang question. They first use nonparametric techniques to isolate a panel of countries on the downward sloping section of a debt Laffer Curve. In particular, overhang countries are ones where a threshold level of debt is reached in sample, beyond which (initial)...