Since Galí [1999], long-run restricted VARs have become the standard for identifying the effects of technology shocks. In a recent paper, Francis et al. [2008] proposed an alternative to identify technology as the shock that maximizes the forecast-error variance share of labor productivity at...

Recent studies using long-run restrictions question the validity of the technology-driven real business cycle hypothesis. We propose an alternative identification that maximizes the contribution of technology shocks to the forecast-error variance of labor productivity at a long, but finite,...