This study documents a general decline in the volatility of employment growth during the period 1960 to 2002 and examines its possible sources. A unique aspect of the analysis is the use of state-level panel data. Estimates from a pooled cross-section/time-series model indicate that aggregate...

Many recent studies have identified a decline in the volatility of U.S. real output over the last half century. This study examines a less discussed and analyzed trend, but one as significant as the drop in output volatility, namely a substantial decline in employment volatility during the...

Recent empirical work documents a decline in the U.S. equity premium and a decline in the standard deviation of real output growth. We investigate the link between aggregate risk and the asset returns in a dynamic production based asset-pricing model. When calibrated to match asset return...

The volatility of the U.S. economy since the mid-1980s is much lower than it was during the prior 20-year period. The proximate causes of the increased stability and their relative importance remain unsettled, but the sharpness of the volatility decline and its timing has led authors such as...

This paper investigates trend and cycle dynamics in per capita income for the major U.S. regions during the 1956-95 period. Cointegration and serial correlation common features information are used in jointly decomposing the series into trend and cycle components. The authors find considerable...

There is a widespread belief that different geographic regions of the U.S. respond differently to economic shocks, perhaps because of factors such as differences in the composition of regional output, adjustment costs, or other frictions. The author investigates the comovement of regional...