This paper explores how much firm-paid employee benefits and firms' financial conditions have contributed to delayed employment recoveries relative to output since 1990, using a DSGE model. Empirically, I document the underexplored pro-cyclicality of per worker benefit costs. Post-1990 period...

This paper explores how much firm-paid employee benefits and firms' financial conditions have contributed to delayed employment recoveries relative to output since 1990, using a DSGE model. Empirically, I document the underexplored pro-cyclicality of per worker benefit costs. Post-1990 period...

The credit crisis erupted in August 2007, with the failure of two Bear Stearns hedge funds, was a warning sign of what would follow. However, most firms did not take advantage of those signals to correct their weaknesses, and remained impassive to the new economic reality. Indeed, Lehman...

In this paper, we exploit exogenous variation in navigability of the Rhine river to analyze the impact of weather-related supply shocks on economic activity in Germany. Our analysis shows that low water levels lead to transportation disruptions that cause a significant and economically...

The frontispiece to Jared Diamond’s book Collapse has a quote from Shelley’s famous poem Ozymandias. The poem evokes the faded glory of New Kingdom Egypt’s great empire, the first extensive empire in world history, and the royal monuments built by its greatest warrior king Ramses II. Oddly...