We document sizeable changes over time and across countries in the comovement of output and unemployment over the business cycle. To a large extent, these changes reflect the evolving cyclical behavior of labor productivity (output per hour worked). For the typical country, productivity shifted...

This note examines labour market performance across countries through the lens of Okun's Law. We find that after the 1970s but prior to the global financial crisis of the 2000s, the Okun's Law relationship between output and unemployment became more homogenous across countries. These changes...

We develop a multisector model in which capital and labor are free to move across firms within each sector, but cannot move across sectors. To isolate the role of sectoral specificity, we compare our model with otherwise identical multisector economies with either economy-wide factor markets (as...

The demographic transition can affect the equilibrium real interest rate through three channels. An increase in longevity - or expectations thereof - puts downward pressure on the real interest rate, as agents build up their savings in anticipation of a longer retirement period. A reduction in...

The Zero Lower Bound (ZLB) on interest rates is often regarded as an important constraint on monetary policy. To assess how the ZLB affected the Fed's ability to conduct policy, we estimate the effects of Fed communication on yields of different maturities in the pre-ZLB and ZLB periods. Before...