Growth of the Korean economy has been sluggish, and this situation is more pronounced in the service sector. We argue that capital misallocation, especially in the service sector, could contribute to this slowdown. Utilizing firm and sectoral level data, first we assess the rising dispersion of...

This paper studies the relationship between volatility and long-run growth in a complete market economy with human capital accumulation and Epstein-Zin preferences. There is both cross-country and time-series evidence that volatility is associated with lower growth. Matching this evidence has...

We develop a model where temporary non-technology shocks can lead to permanent changes in the rate of growth of total factor productivity (TFP). The key ingredient of the model is a matching processes between basic researchers, product developers, and the stock of knowledge of the economy. In...

There is cross-country and time-series evidence that volatility is associated with slower growth. However, matching this evidence has proven to be a challenge for growth models without market failures, as they tend to predict the opposite for values of risk aversion greater than unity. This note...

This paper investigates the time-varying relationship between German output and employment growth, in particular their decoupling in recent years. We estimate a correlated unobserved components model that allows for persistent and cyclical time variation in the employment-GDP linkage as well as...

In this work we study the granular origins of business cycles and their possible underlying drivers. As shown by Gabaix (2011), the skewed nature of firm size distributions implies that idiosyncratic (and independent) firm-level shocks may account for a significant portion of aggregate...

This paper presents a method to conduct early estimates of GDP growth in Germany. We employ MIDAS regressions to circumvent the mixed frequency problem and use pooling techniques to summarize efficiently the information content of the various indicators. More specifically, we investigate whether...

This paper examines Papua New Guinea's economic growth record within a simple growth ccounting framework. The analysis shows that reductions in growth are mostly accounted for by a significant slowdown in capital inputs and lower total factor productivity growth. On average, no productivity...

With fiscal adjustment proceeding quickly in Bulgaria and given the weak economic growth environment, there is keen interest in making the budget composition more growth friendly. This paper quantifies the short-term impact of fiscal policy on economic activity in Bulgaria using econometric and...

Low positive GDP growth has been interpreted as evidence that the economy may be "stalling", implying that low growth is a strong predictor of future recessions. We examine the empirical evidence for stalling based on kernel density estimates, probit estimates and Markov switching models....