This paper provides new evidence in support of the idea that bouts of optimism and pessimism drive much of US business cycles. In particular, we begin by using sign-restriction based identification schemes to isolate innovations in optimism or pessimism and we document the extent to which such...

This paper provides new evidence in support of the idea that bouts of optimism and pessimism drive much of US business cycles. In particular, we begin by using sign-restriction based identification schemes to isolate innovations in optimism or pessimism and we document the extent to which such...

The terms of trade and the real exchange rate of the US appreciate when the US labor productivity increases relative to the rest of the world. This finding is at odds with predictions from standard international macroeconomic models. In this paper, we find that incorporating news shocks to total...

In this paper, we find that expected (news) and unexpected (contemporaneous) components of productivity changes have opposite effects on the U.S. real exchange rate. Following Barsky and Sims' (2010) identification method, we decompose US total factor productivity (TFP) into news and...

The interaction between the exchange rate regime, trade firms' price-setting behavior, and exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) is an important topic in international economics. This paper studies this using a goods-level dataset of US-China trade prices collected by the US Bureau of Labor...

The interaction between the exchange rate regime, trade firms' price-setting behavior, and exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) is an important topic in international economics. This paper studies this using a goods-level dataset of US-China trade prices collected by the US Bureau of Labor...

Price-setting behavior of exporters and exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) are crucial issues in international macroeconomics. This paper studies these topics, using a novel dataset of goods-level US-China trade prices collected by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. We document that the duration...

We document in the US data: (1) The dominant predictable component of investment-sector TFP is its long-run movements, and a favorable shock to predictable changes in investmentsector TFP induces a broad economic boom that leads actual increases in investment-sector TFP by almost two years, and...

We investigate the effects of predictable changes in TFP at the sectoral level. Our findings can reconcile the seemingly contradictory findings in the literature. Shocks to predictable changes in investment-sector TFP are also found important for US business cycle fluctuations.

The interaction between the exchange rate regime, trade firms' price-setting behavior, and exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) is an important topic in international economics. This paper studies this using a goods-level dataset of US-China trade prices collected by the US Bureau of Labor...