The average employment rate for the OECD countries was close to 63 percent in the period 2000- 2015 but there is considerable variation within and between countries. We find that a dynamic model for employment, derived from a multiple equation macro model with institutional and population...

The corporate sector has turned from a net borrowing position to a net lending position in many advanced countries over the past decades. This phenomenon is rather unusual as the corporate sector had historically borrowed funds from other sectors in the economy. In this paper, we analyze how...

Electricity is a general purpose technology and the catalyst for the second industrial revolution. Developing countries are currently making huge investments in electrification, with a view to achieving structural change. What does history say about its impact on the structure of employment? We...

To what extent can technological advances in the production of capital account for the recent, worldwide decline in the labor income share? We pose two challenges to the automation narrative: first, estimates of the elasticity of substitution (EOS) between capital and labor tend to fall below or...

This paper considers a two sectors heterogeneous firms model where firms' specific production technology and capital intensity are endogenously determined through business dynamics. It shows that a shock to the relative price of investment goods is followed by the entrance of new firms...

The constancy of the elasticity of factor substitution (σ) makes its role as a driver of the labor income share exogenous. The constant elasticity of substitution (CES) (Arrow et al., 1961) production function has predominantly been used to support this causal relationship. This paper argues...

Electricity is a general purpose technology and the catalyst for the second industrial revolution. What was its impact on the structure of employment? We use U.S. Census data from 1910 to 1940 and measure electrification with the length of higher-voltage electricity lines. Instrumenting for...

The corporate sector has turned from a net borrowing position to a net lending position in many advanced countries over the past decades. This phenomenon is rather unusual as the corporate sector had historically borrowed funds from other sectors in the economy. In this paper, we analyze how...

We develop a novel empirical approach to identify the effectiveness of policies against a pandemic. The essence of our approach is the insight that epidemic dynamics are best tracked over stages, rather than over time. We use a normalization procedure that makes the pre-policy paths of the...

We develop a novel empirical approach to identify the effectiveness of policies against a pandemic. The essence of our approach is the insight that epidemic dynamics are best tracked over stages, rather than over time. We use a normalization procedure that makes the pre-policy paths of the...