We study the world trading equilibrium in a Ricardian model where factors of production are themselves produced and tradable rather than endowed and non-tradable, corresponding to the three-quarters of international trade that is in intermediate and capital goods. We show that trade affects...

We introduce a new time series measure of the extent of federal regulation in the U.S. and use it to investigate the relationship between federal regulation and macroeconomic performance. We find that regulation has statistically and economically significant effects on aggregate output and the...

We study the interaction of endogenous growth and Ricardian trade working solely through comparative advantage. The model is built to be consistent with several facts about technical progress, R&D activity, industrial organization, and trade. We obtain a full characterization of the transition...

Endogenous growth requires that non-reproducible factors of production be either augmented or eliminated. Attention heretofore has focused almost exclusively on augmentation. In contrast, we study factor elimination. Maximizing agents decide when to reduce the importance of non-reproducible...

The most overworked figure in our society may be the unemployment rate. Newscasters, politicians, and economists use it in discussing everything from the overall health of the economy to the merits of alternative welfare programs. Despite its widespread use, however, the unemployment rate...

This paper derives the optimal size of the financial sector using a general equilibrium framework that is an extension of Holmstrom and Tirole's 1997 paper. We show that the financial sector has a unique optimal size relative to the size of the economy as a whole. Creating and maintaining this...

This paper investigates the demand by households for transaction services from the financial sector. Households buy several goods with any of several media of exchange. The households choose the medium of exchange to use for each type of good, how much of each type of medium to hold, and the...

We introduce a new measure of the extent of federal regulation in the U.S. and use it to investigate the relationship between federal regulation and macroeconomic performance. We find that regulation has statistically and economically significant effects on aggregate output and the factors that...