This paper is structured in three parts. The first part outlines the methodological steps, involving both theoretical and empirical work, for assessing whether an observed allocation of resources across countries is efficient. The second part applies the methodology to the long-run allocation of...

We study the effect of financial integration on the transmission of international business cycles. In a sample of 20 developed countries between 1978 and 2009 we find that, in periods without financial crises, increases in bilateral financial linkages are associated with more divergent output...

Previous literature has shown that the study and characterization of constrained efficient allocations in economies with limited enforcement is useful to understand the limited risk sharing observed in many contexts, in particular between sovereign countries. In this paper we show that these...

We conduct a systematic empirical study of cross-sectional inequality in the United States, integrating data from the Current Population Survey, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and the Survey of Consumer Finances. In order to understand how different...

This paper provides an introduction to the special issue of the Review of Economic Dynamics on "Cross Sectional Facts for Macroeconomists''. The issue documents, for nine countries, the level and the evolution, over time and over the life cycle, of several dimensions of economic inequality,...

We first document a strong negative correlation between the level of household net worth, and aggregate business cycle volatility over the past 50 years in the United States. The early 1960s and the Great Moderation of the 1980s and 1990s were periods of high asset values and low volatility. The...

The 2008-2009 US crisis is characterized by an unprecedented degree of international synchronization, as all other G7 countries experienced large contractions. The international synchronization of the recent crisis is not present in many of the previous US contractions. We study a two-country...