This paper studies how frictions, both real and financial, interact with capital tax policy in a dynamic, general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms. Comparative statics show that tax policy can have substantially different effects depending upon the frictions present. Analytical and...

Using data from the 1997-cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY-97), we examine the effects of California’s first in the nation government-mandated paid family leave program (CA-PFL) on mothers’ and fathers’ use of leave during the period surrounding child birth, and on...

This paper studies the role of unemployment insurance in a sticky-price model that features an efficiency-wage view of the labor market based on unobservable effort. The risk-sharing mechanism central to the model permits, but does not force, agents to be fully insured. Structural parameters are...

This paper examines the impact of unemployment insurance on the propagation of monetary disturbances in a staggered price model of the business cycle. To motivate a role for risk sharing behavior, I construct a quantitative equilibrium model that gives prominence to an efficiency-wage theory of...

In a stylized economy with price and wage stickiness, this paper argues that delegating a nominal wage target to a central bank operating under discretion generally delivers better social outcomes than delegating price level or inflation targets. Although both policies impart inertia into...

This paper explains US macroeconomic outcomes with an empirical new-Keynesian model in which monetary policy minimizes the central bank's loss function. The presence of expectations in the model forms a well-known distinction between two modes of optimization, termed commitment and discretion. I...

This paper presents a Generalized Method of Moments algorithm for estimating the structural parameters of a macroeconomic model subject to the restriction that the coefficients of the monetary policy rule minimize the central bank's expected loss function. The algorithm combines least-squares...

The Business and Economic Research Center (BERC), Middle Tennessee State University, conducted a wage and benefit survey of the manufacturing sector in Coffee, Franklin, and Lincoln counties between April and May 2011. The wage and benefit survey was sponsored by the South Central Tennessee...

The term green jobs has been widely used to describe jobs in businesses that are particularly related to renewable energy, energy efficiency, or environmental sustainability. The Business and Economic Research Center has partnered with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development...

Located in northwest Tennessee, the proposed infrastructural development of the Port of Cates Landing will alter economic dynamics in the three-county region (Dyer, Lake, and Obion). The proposed infrastructure investment of $20 million in the Port of Cates Landing will create a truly intermodal...