Different theories of price stickiness have distinct implications on the number of modes in the distribution of price changes. We formally test for the number of modes in the price change distribution of 36 supermarkets, spanning 22 countries and 5 continents. We present results for three...

There seems to be a widespread belief among economists, policy-makers, and members of the media that the "confidence'" of households and businesses is a critical component in the transmission of fiscal policy shocks into economic activity. We take this proposition to the data using standard...

I present a theoretical model where the economy endogenously adopts the technological ideas of a slowly evolving technological frontier, and show that the presence of a "technological gap" between unadopted ideas and current productivity can lead to multiple equilibria and therefore the...

The news-shock literature interprets empirical news-shock identifications as signals about future productivity. Under this view, changes in productivity cause changes in expectations. I investigate an alternative interpretation whereby changes in expectations cause changes in productivity. I...

The compelling case offered by Austrians regarding the recent economic downturn has no doubt encouraged many to take a closer look at the broader Austrian perspective. Similarly, the jobless recovery has prompted some soul searching in labor economics. We briefly review the history and...

Financial markets have experienced unprecedented transformations, signs of which have emerged since the late 1970s. In recent years substantial consolidation occurred. In response to changes in macroeconomic variables, such as GDP, industrial production, inflation and the political business...

I analyze Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment that shocks housing demand by reducing the stock supply of housing and raising net migration. With empirical data from 57 metropolitan areas, I measure the impact of Katrina on housing price, new residential investment and net migration, and...

This chapter gives an overview of the recent literature on indeterminacy and sunspots in macroeconomics. It discusses of some of the conceptual and the technical aspects of this literature, and provides a simple framework for illustrating the mechanisms of various dynamic equilibrium models that...

We implement a new approach for the identification of news shocks about future technology. In a VAR featuring a measure of aggregate technology and several forward-looking variables, we identify the news shock as the shock orthogonal to technology innovations that best explains future variation...

A means of exchange and preservation of value is likely as old as our species. Global economic trade is often argued to be as old as trade. The question of the nature of the exchange, of who creates the value and how it is regulated is the issue. While tin from England may have reached Sumeria...