The theoretical literature presumes generational risk is large enough to merit study and that such risk can be meaningfully shared via appropriate government policy. This paper questions these propositions. It develops an 80-period OLG model to directly measure generational risk and the extent...

The theoretical literature presumes generational risk is large enough to merit study and that such risk can be meaningfully shared via appropriate government policies. This paper assesses these propositions. It develops a computational technique to overcome the curse of dimensionality and...

We examine the role of oil price shocks in effecting changes both at the aggregate and sectoral levels using an estimated dynamic stochastic equilibrium open economy model. Our main finding is that energy price shocks are not able directly to generate the magnitude of the economic downturn...

In our dynamic optimizing sticky price model, agents are heterogeneous with regard to their age and their productivity. We find that the business cycle dynamics in the OLG model in response to both a technology shock and a monetary shock are similar, but not completely identical to those found...

Observed macroeconomic data – notably GDP growth rate, inflation and interest rates – can be, and usually are skewed. Economists attempt to fit models to data by matching first and second moments or co-moments, but skewness is usually neglected. It is so probably because skewness cannot...

While the world real interest rate is potentially an important mechanism for transmitting international shocks to small open economies, much of the recent quantitative research that studies this mechanism concludes that it has little effect on output, investment, and net exports. We reexamine...

We investigate the role of global shocks in the determination of US business cycle fluctuations, with a particular focus on their relative contribution to explaining the dynamics of output and real exchange rate. To this end, we develop a two-sector open economy dynamic stochastic general...

We study how aggregate volatility is influenced by the propagation of idiosyncratic shocks across firms through the network of ownership relations. We use detailed data on cross-holdings as well as the relevant balance sheet information for almost the entire universe of Italian limited liability...

Relatively small sectoral productivity shocks could lead to sizable macroeconomic variability. Whereas most contributions in the literature analyze the issue of aggregate sensitivity using simple general equilibrium models, a novel approach is proposed in this paper, based on stochastic...

This paper examines the role of external shocks in explaining macroeconomic fluctuations in African countries. We construct a quantitative, stochastic, dynamic, multi-sector equilibrium model of a small open economy calibrated to represent a typical African economy. In our framework, external...