We estimate Okun's law, the negative relationship between output and the unemployment rate, at the sector level for the US, the UK, Japan, and Switzerland to test several hypotheses that may explain why the aggregate Okun's coeffcients are different across countries. Specifically, we show that...

Recent empirical evidence suggests that skill-biased technological change that shifts labor demand towards non-routine jobs has accelerated during the Great Recession. We analyze the interaction between the gradual process of transition towards a skill intensive technology and business cycles in...

We analyse measures of internal flexibility taken to safeguard employment during the Coronavirus Crisis in comparison to the Great Recession. Cyclical working-time reductions are again a major factor in safeguarding employment. Whereas during the Great Recession all working-time instruments...

Section 2 of the Sherman Act bans monopolization of any part of interstate commerce. This essay draws on macroeconomic theory and the New Deal experience with partial repeal of the antitrust laws and cartelization of labor to examine the relationship between macroeconomic stability and the...

Oil prices rose sharply prior to the onset of the 2007-2009 recession. Hamilton (2005) noted that nine of the last ten recessions in the United States were preceded by a substantial increase in the price of oil. In this paper, we consider whether oil price shocks significantly increase the...

Since the 1970s, exports and imports of manufactured goods have been the engine of international trade and much of that trade relies on container shipping. This paper introduces a new monthly index of the volume of container trade to and from North America. Incorporating this index into a...

Since the 1970s, exports and imports of manufactured goods have been the engine of international trade and much of that trade relies on container shipping. This paper introduces a new monthly index of the volume of container trade to and from North America. Incorporating this index into a...

The paper aims at assessing the mechanics of the Great Recession, considering both its domestic propagation within the US, as well as its spillovers to advanced and emerging economies. A total of 50 countries has been investigated by means of a large-scale open economy macroeconometric model,...