Using plant-level data from Chile and the U.S. we show that investment spikes are highly pro-cyclical, so much so that changes in the number of establishments undergoing investment spikes (the "extensive margin") account for the bulk of variation in aggregate investment. The number of...

investment, even controlling for past investment and sales. We re-calibrate the Thomas (2002) model (that includes fixed costs of investing) so that it assigns a prominent role to extensive adjustment. The recalibrated model has very different properties than the standard RBC model for some shocks.

To study the long-run effect of dividend taxation on aggregate capital accumulation, we build a dynamic general equilibrium model in which there is a continuum of firms subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks. We find that a dividend tax cut raises aggregate productivity by reducing the...

A capital income tax cut must in general be financed by increasing other taxes, and thus will have redistributive effects. This paper studies analytically the redistribution implied by a capital income tax cut in the Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans neoclassical growth model when agents differ in wealth and...

This paper studies whether the Rietz–Barro “disaster” model, extended for a time-varying probability of disaster, can match the empirical evidence on predictability of stock returns. It is shown that when utility is CRRA, the model cannot replicate this evidence, regardless of parameter...

This paper attempts to reconcile the high apparent aggregate elasticity of labor supply with small micro estimates. We elaborate on Rogerson’s seminal work (1988) and show that his results rely neither on complete markets nor on lotteries, but rather on the indivisibility of labor supply and...

In this paper, I propose and test a simple technology-based theory of firms’ sensitivities to aggregate shocks. I show that when the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor is below unity, low profitability firms are more sensitive to aggregate shocks, i.e. to the business cycle....

A capital income tax cut must in general be financed by increasing other taxes, and thus will have redistributive effects. This paper studies analytically the redistribution implied by a capital income tax cut in the Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans neoclassical growth model when agents differ in wealth and...

Firms' first-order conditions imply that stock returns equal investment returns from the production technology. Much applied work uses the adjustment cost technology, which implies that the realized return is high when the investment-capital ratio is high. This paper derives, for an arbitrary...

Macroeconomic models with financial frictions typically imply that the excess return on a well-diversified portfolio of corporate bonds is close to zero. In contrast, the empirical finance literature documents large and time-varying risk premia in the corporate bond market (the "credit spread...