The decisions of firms on investment and hiring play a crucial role in business cycle fluctuations. This paper explores their dynamic behavior in the presence of frictions. It does so within a unified framework, stressing their mutual dependence and placing the emphasis on their joint,...

The decisions of firms on investment and hiring play a crucial role in business cycle fluctuations. This paper explores their dynamic behavior in the presence of frictions. It does so within a unified framework, stressing their mutual dependence and placing the emphasis on their joint,...

We argue for the resurrection of an old idea: electricity use as an indicator of U.S. economic activity. Our analysis relies on associations - the 40-year correlation between growth rates in real GDP and electricity use can be as high as 89% - and intuition. Electricity use and economic...

"This book is part of a new generation of work on the events of the 1920s and 1930s, one that provides a gestalt view of this period. As such, the many events that have until now been viewed as unrelated, are viewed as parts of a greater whole, namely the introduction of a new power drive...

This paper shows that adjustment costs modelled as firing costs of moderate size go a long way in explaining the variability and counter-cyclicality of the labour share at the firm and aggregate level. Firing costs cause firms to hire less in recessions and hire less in booms causing wage costs...

This paper explores the influence of on-the-job training on the employment effect of firing costs. It shows that on-the-job training (generating firm specific skills) causes firing costs to have a contractionary influence on average employment (over the booms and recessions of the business cycle).

In this paper we analyse the employment implications of firing restrictions. We find that when a recession is expected and the trend rate of productivity growth is small, a rise in firing costs affects mainly the hiring decision. Thus there is a negative effect on average employment. When, on...