This paper considers the importance of dynamic complementarities as an endogenous source of propagation in a dynamic stochastic economy. Dynamic complementarities link the stocks of human and organizational capital, which are influenced by past levels of economic activity, to current levels of...

The literature on inventory holdings stresses their role in smoothing production when costs are convex. Existing empirical evidence suggests that output is more variable than consumption so that production smoothing is not apparently present. One way of explaining this finding is to allow for...

This paper studies the employment and productivity implications of new labor regulations in China. These new policies were intended to protect workers' employment conditions by, among other things, increasing firing costs and increasing compensation. We estimate a model of costly labor...

Barber and Odean (2000) study the relationship between trading frequency andreturns. They find that households who trade more frequently have a lower net return than other households. But all households have about the same gross return. They argue that these results cannot emerge from a model...

This paper studies dynamic labor demand by private and public manufacturing plants in China. It contributes along two dimensions. First, it uncovers the objectives of public enterprises and compares them to private enterprises. Second, it estimates adjustment costs of these plants and thus their...

This paper studies the employment and productivity implications of new labor regulations in China. These new restrictions are intended to protect workers' employment conditions by, among other things, increasing firing costs and increasing compensation. We estimate a model of costly labor...

This paper studies household financial choices: why are these decisions dependent on the education level of the household? A life-cycle model is constructed to understand a rich set of facts about decisions of households with different levels of educational attainment regarding stock market...

This paper studies the fragility of interbank markets. Due to moral hazard and asymmetric information problems, collateral along with borrowing constraints are needed to provide appropriate incentives for banks. A key element of the analysis is the distinction between collateral based upon...

This paper studies hours, employment, vacancies and unemployment at micro and macro levels. It is built around a set of facts concerning the variability of unemployment and vacancies in the aggregate and, at the establishment level, the distribution of net employment growth and the comovement of...

This paper investigates the dynamic behavior of an economy with multiple Nash equilibria. The first part of the paper analyzes an abstract game exhibiting multiple equilibria. A history dependent selection criterion is proposed which induces correlated behavior in equilibrium even though agents...