Shocks to the marginal efficiency of investment are the most important drivers of business cycle fluctuations in US output and hours. Moreover, these disturbances drive prices higher in expansions, like a textbook demand shock. We reach these conclusions by estimating a DSGE model with several...

Shocks to the marginal efficiency of investment are the most important drivers of business cycle fluctuations in U.S. output and hours. Moreover, like a textbook demand shock, these disturbances drive prices higher in expansions. We reach these conclusions by estimating a dynamic stochastic...

"We study the driving forces of fluctuations in an estimated New Neoclassical Synthesis model of the U.S. economy with several shocks and frictions. In this model, shocks to the marginal efficiency of investment account for the bulk of fluctuations in output and hours at business cycle...

"Not in an estimated DSGE model of the US economy, once we account for the fact that most of the high-frequency volatility in wages appears to be due to noise, rather than to variation in workers' preferences or market power"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

The business cycle is alive and well, and real variables respond to it more or less as they always did. Witness the Great Recession. In ation, in contrast, has gone quiescent. This paper studies the sources of this disconnect using VARs and an estimated DSGE model. It finds that the disconnect...