A prominent feature of the Kiyotaki and Wright (1989) model of commodity money is the multiplicity of dynamic equilibria. We show that the frequency of search is strongly related to the extent of multiplicity. To isolate the role of frequency of search in generating multiplicity, we (i) vary the...

We derive the optimal labor income tax schedule for a life cycle model with deterministic productivity variation and complete asset markets. An individual chooses whether and how much to work at each date. The government must finance a given expenditure and does not have access to lump sum...

This paper studies an analytically tractable model of the formation and evolution of chains of production. Over time, entrepreneurs accumulate techniques to produce their good using goods produced by other entrepreneurs and labor as inputs. The value of a technique depends on both the...

We develop a framework that uses micro data to estimate the aggregate capital-labor elasticity of substitution. We first show that the aggregate elasticity is a convex combination of the plant-level elasticity of substitution and the elasticity of demand. This expression captures substitution...

Measured total factor productivity often declines sharply during financial crises. In 1982, the Chilean manufacturing sector suffered a severe contraction in output, most of which can be accounted for by a falling Solow residual. This paper uses establishment data from the Chilean manufacturing...

A prominent feature of the Kiyotaki–Wright model of commodity money is multiplicity of dynamic equilibria. We show that the extent of multiplicity hinges on the frequency of search. Holding fixed the average number of meetings over time, we vary search frequency by altering the interval...

We estimate the aggregate elasticity of substitution between capital and labor in the US manufacturing sector. We show that the aggregate elasticity of substitution can be expressed as a simple function of plant level structural parameters and sufficient statistics of the distribution of plant...

We derive the optimal labor income tax schedule for a life cycle model with deterministic productivity variation and complete asset markets. An individual chooses whether and how much to work at each date. The government must finance a given expenditure and does not have access to lump sum...

A prominent feature of the Kiyotaki and Wright (1989) model of commodity money is the multiplicity of dynamic equilibria. We show that the frequency of search is strongly related to the extent of multiplicity. To isolate the role of frequency of search in generating multiplicity, we (i) vary the...

We develop a framework to estimate the aggregate capital-labor elasticity of substitution by aggregating the actions of individual plants, and use it to assess the decline in labor's share of income in the US manufacturing sector. The aggregate elasticity reflects substitution within plants and...