We formulate a version of the growth model in which production is carried out by heterogeneous establishments and calibrate it to U.S. data. In the context of this model we argue that differences in the allocation of resources across establishments that differ in productivity may be an important...

Commonly used frictional models of the labor market imply that changes in frictions have large effects on steady state employment and unemployment. We use a model that features both frictions and an operative labor supply margin to examine the robustness of this feature to the inclusion of a...

This paper studies fluctuations in a real business cycle model when there is a risk neutral agent present to offer insurance to workers. This economy is compared with one in which there is no risk neutral agent but labor is indivisible. In static models it is difficult to distinguish the risk...

Cross-country differences in labor market participation are often larger than differences in unemployment rates. The same holds true across demographic groups within a given economy. We argue that the interaction between labor force participation decisions and labor market frictions can help us...

The paper documents how cyclical fluctuations in market work vary over the life cycle and then assesses the predictions of a life-cycle version of the growth model for those observations. The analysis yields a simple but striking finding. The main discrepancy between the model and that data lies...

This paper develops a multicommunity model and analyzes policies that affect spending on public education and its distribution across communities. The authors find that policies that on net increase the fraction of the (relatively) wealthiest residents in the poorest community are welfare...

This paper examines low-frequency movements in employment in a cross-section of industrialized countries for the period 1960–95, using both aggregate and disaggregated data. It documents nine stylized facts about cross-country variations in employment.

This paper uses a simple model of labor supply extended to allow for home production to understand the extent to which differences in taxes can account for differences in time allocations between the US and Europe. Once home production is included, the elasticity of substitution between...