This paper studies an analytically tractable model of the formation and evolution of chains of production. Over time, entrepreneurs accumulate techniques to produce their good using goods produced by other entrepreneurs and labor as inputs. The value of a technique depends on both the...

Compared to a half-century ago, inequality in the United states has risen and measured productivity growth has fallen. Concerns about rising inequality have been exacerbated by the observation that prices of goods consumed by the poor have risen faster than prices of goods consumed by the rich....

This paper studies an analytically tractable model of the formation and evolution of chains of production. Over time, entrepreneurs accumulate techniques to produce their good using goods produced by other entrepreneurs and labor as inputs. The value of a technique depends on both the...

We derive the optimal labor income tax schedule for a life cycle model with deterministic productivity variation and complete asset markets. An individual chooses whether and how much to work at each date. The government must finance a given expenditure and does not have access to lump sum...

A prominent feature of the Kiyotaki and Wright (1989) model of commodity money is the multiplicity of dynamic equilibria. We show that the frequency of search is strongly related to the extent of multiplicity. To isolate the role of frequency of search in generating multiplicity, we (i) vary the...

This paper develops a theory of the formation and evolution of chains of production. Entrepreneurs search for production techniques that use alternative sets of inputs, which are in turn produced by other entrepreneurs. The value of a technique depends both on its inherent productivity and on...

We develop a framework that uses micro data to estimate the aggregate capital-labor elasticity of substitution. We first show that the aggregate elasticity is a convex combination of the plant-level elasticity of substitution and the elasticity of demand. This expression captures substitution...

This paper studies an environment in which the network structure of production - who buys inputs from whom - is determined endogenously and is the key determinant of aggregate productivity. I address two questions: How do contracting frictions shape the equilibrium network structure? And...