We examine the sources of macroeconomic economic fluctuations by estimating a variety of medium-scale DSGE models within a unified framework that incorporates regime switching both in shock variances and in the inflation target. Our general framework includes a number of different model features...

Previous studies on financial frictions have been unable to establish the empirical significance of credit constraints in macroeconomic fluctuations. This paper argues that the muted impact of credit constraints stems from the absence of a mechanism to explain the observed persistent comovements...

Although CPI inflation and PPI inflation are both readily observable, the latter has received much less attention in the design of optimal monetary policy, despite the apparent difference in the cyclical behaviors of the two price indices. This paper constructs a sticky-price DSGE model, in...

We study the sources of the Great Moderation by estimating a variety of medium-scale DSGE models that incorporate regime switches in shock variances and in the inflation target. The best-fit model, the one with two regimes in shock variances, gives quantitatively different dynamics in comparison...

Wage inequality between education groups in the United States has increased substantially since the early 1980s. The relative quantity of college-educated workers has also increased dramatically in the postwar period. This paper presents a unified framework where the dynamics of both skill...

A commonly held view is that nominal rigidities are important for the transmission of monetary policy shocks. We argue that they are also important for understanding the dynamic effects of technology shocks, especially on labor hours, wages, and prices. Based on a dynamic general equilibrium...

This paper empirically estimates a balanced-growth consistent, dynamic, structural model of intertemporal consumption and asset pricing that allows for, but does not assume, the Gul-Pesendorfer preferences of temptation and self-control, using synthetic panel data constructed from the Consumer...

The sticky-price theory has proved fairly successful in explaining the dynamic effects of technology shocks on employment, at least under weak accommodation of monetary policy to the shocks. Yet, when we extend the analysis to a broader set of labor market variables, including employment as well...

This paper proposes a unified theory to explain two observed patterns of international business cycle comovements: 1) The correlations in aggregate output and in consumption between OECD countries tend to be much higher than those between emerging market economies such as Latin America; and 2)...

The possibility of regime shifts in monetary policy can have important effects on rational agents' expectation formation and equilibrium dynamics. In a DSGE model where the monetary policy rule switches between a bad regime that accommodates inflation and a good regime that stabilizes inflation,...