The reaction of hours worked to technology shocks represents a key controversy between RBC and New Keynesian explanations of the business cycle. It sparked a large empirical literature with contrasting results. We demonstrate that, with a more general and data coherent supply and production...

The elasticity of substitution between capital and labor and, in turn, the direction of technical change are critical parameters in many fields of economics. Until recently, though, the application of production functions with non-unitary substitution elasticities (i.e., non Cobb Douglas) was...

The reaction of hours worked to technology shocks represents a key controversy between RBC and New Keynesian explanations of the business cycle. It sparked a large empirical literature with contrasting results. We demonstrate that, with a more general and data coherent supply and production...

We provide industry-level estimates of the elasticity of substitution (σ) between capital and labor in the US economy. We also estimate rates of factor-augmentation. Aggregate estimates are produced using the same data. Our empirical model comes from the first-order conditions associated with a...

We put forward a tractable, interpretable, and easily generalizable framework for modeling endogeneous factor-augmenting technology choice by monopolistically competitive firms. The setup is framed within the standard Dixit and Stiglitz (1977) model of monopolistic competition. Optimal...

We generalize the normalized Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) production function by allowing the elasticity of substitution to vary isoelastically with (i) relative factor shares, (ii) marginal rates of substitution, (iii) capital-labor ratios, or (iv) capital-output ratios. Ensuing...

Big data technologies change the way in which data and human labor combine to create knowledge. Is this a modest technological advance or a transformation of our basic economic processes? Using hiring and wage data from the financial sector, we estimate firms' data stocks and the shape of their...

The U.S. economy has experienced a significant drop in the fraction of the population employed in middle wage, “routine task-intensive” occupations. Applying machine learning techniques, we identify characteristics of those who used to be employed in such occupations and show they are now...

We analyze the effects of automation and education on economic growth and inequality in an R&D-based growth model with two types of labor: high-skilled labor that is complementary to machines and low-skilled labor that is a substitute for machines. The model predicts that innovation-driven...

The Cobb-Douglas production function (the C-D function) is believed to have successfully validated and consolidated the marginal productivity theory of income distribution (MPTID) and the aggregate production function (APF). However, this paper discovers that this success is an illusion. It...