We show that since 1994, branching deregulations in the U.S have signi cantly affected the supply of mortgage credit, and ultimately house prices. With deregulation, the number and volume of originated mortgage loans increase, while denial rates fall. But the deregulation has no effect on a...

Estimates of the elasticity of substitution between domestic and foreign varieties are small in macroeconomic data, but substantially larger in disaggregated microeconomic studies. This may be an artifact of heterogeneity. We use disaggregated multilateral trade data to structurally identify...

We study television prices across European countries and regions. Quality as measured by observable characteristics of televisions accounts for a large share of the international dispersion in prices. Rich economies tend to consume higher-quality goods, but sizeable international price...

The paper uses a partial equilibrium model to simulate times series on inputs utilization rates--capital utilization and labor effort--for 10 OECD countries. The resulting series are filtered from standard measures of the Solow residual. The main findings are as follows: once variable inputs...

This paper studies the evolution of sectoral labor concentration in relation to the level of per capita income. We show that various measures of sectoral concentration follow a U-shaped pattern across a wide variety of data sources: countries first diversify, in the sense that labor is spread...

This paper shows correlations in GDP fluctuations rise with financial integration. Finance serves to increase international correlations in both consumption and GDP fluctuations, which explains the persistent gap between the two in the data, a quantity puzzle. The positive association between...

We investigate theoretically and empirically the competitive effects of increased trade on prices, productivity and markups. Using disaggregated data for EU manufacturing over the period 1988-2000 we find increased openness exerts a negative and significant impact on sectoral prices. Increased...

Fluctuations in GDP are more synchronized internationally than fluctuations in Consumption, and they remain so even between financially integrated economies, where the ranking should in theory be the reverse. This paper shows this happens because correlations in GDP fluctuations rise with...