Over the past two decades, technological progress has been biased towards making skilled labor more productive. What does skill-biased technological change imply for business cycles? To answer this question, we construct a quarterly series for the skill premium from the CPS and use it to...

In this paper, we identify demand shocks that can have a permanent effect on output through hysteresis effects. We call these shocks permanent demand shocks. They are found to be quantitatively important in the United States, in particular when the sample includes the Great Recession. Recessions...

This paper documents the recent changes in the structure and estimation procedures of the SAMBA model, providing a complete description of the decision problems that each economic agent faces, the first order conditions that solve those problems, and the new techniques employed to estimate the...

Bivariate SVAR models employing long-run identifying restrictions are often used to investigate the source of business cycle fluctuations. Their advantage is the simplicity in use and interpretation. However, their low dimension may also lead to a failure of the identification procedure, with...

We assess the contribution of "undue optimism" (Pigou) to short-run fluctuations. In our analysis, optimism pertains to total factor productivity which determines economic activity in the long run, but is not contemporaneously observed by market participants. In order to recover optimism shocks...

Expectations matter for economic activity. To the extent that they are fundamentally unwarranted, they represent "undue optimism or pessimism" (Pigou, 1927). In this paper, we identify empirically the effect of undue optimism/pessism ("optimism shocks") on economic activity. In a first step, we...

Bivariate SVAR models employing long-run identifying restrictions are often used to investigate the source of business cycle fluctuations. Their advantage is the simplicity in use and interpretation. However, their low dimension may also lead to a failure of the identification procedure, with...

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that a positive technology shock leads to a temporary decline in employment. A two-country model is used to demonstrate that the open economy dimension can enhance the ability of sticky price models to account for the evidence. The reasoning is as...

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that a positive technology shock leads to a temporary decline in employment. A two-country model is used to demonstrate that the open economy dimension can enhance the ability of sticky price models to account for the evidence. The reasoning is as...