Motivated by the apparent failure of the credit multiplier mechanism (CM) to deliver amplification in DSGE models, we re-examine its role in business cycles to address the question: is something wrong with the CM? Our answer is no. In coming to this answer we construct a model with reproducible...

Labor productivity (LP) in the United States has gone from being procyclical to acyclical since the mid-1980s. Using industry-level data, this paper first shows that total factor productivity (TFP), which is LP net of capital deepening, has also become much less correlated with output as well as...

As has been widely observed, the volatility of GDP has declined since the mid-1980s compared with prior years. One leading explanation for this decline is that monetary policy improved significantly in the later period. We utilize a cross-section of 2-digit manufacturing and trade industries to...

We build and estimate a two-sector (goods and services) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with two types of inventories: materials (input) inventories facilitate the production of finished goods, while finished goods (output) inventories yield utility services. The model is estimated...

Most of the reduction in GDP volatility since the 1983 is accounted for by a decline in comovement of output among industries that hold inventories. This decline is not simply a passive byproduct of reduced volatility in common factors or shocks. Instead, structural changes occurred in the...

This paper describes an equilibrium life-cycle model of housing where nonconvex adjustment costs lead households to adjust their housing choice infrequently and by large amounts when they do so. In the cross-sectional dimension, the model matches the wealth distribution; the age profiles of...

A number of explanations for the observed decline in GDP volatility since the mid-1980s have been offered. Valerie Ramey and Daniel Vine (2003a, 2003b) in a couple of recent papers offer the hypothesis that a decline in the persistence of sales is an explanation for the decline in GDP...

Given the importance of urban public services in attracting firm location, increasing employment and facilitating economic growth, in this paper, we examine the following questions: Is there a need for reforming public service delivery in Ludhiana (which is a city chosen under India's leading...

This paper analyzes the monthly evolution of bank competition in Mexico from 2008 to 2019 using different measures. Subsequently, we analyze whether the 2014 financial reform had an effect on some of our competition measures. We use ordinary and quantile regression techniques and Markov...

Traditional climate policy is based on the market-liberal paradigm that relies on carbon pricing, a belief in self-regulating markets, and transfer payments for the so-called "losers" of the transfor- mation process. The market-liberal approach to climate policy is certain to fail because it is...