Based on long US time series we document a range of empirical properties of the labor’s share of GDP, including its substantial medium-run swings. We explore the extent to which these empirical regularities can be explained by a calibrated micro-founded long-run economic growth model with...

We explore the relationship between financial reforms and income inequality using a panel of 29 countries over 1975-2005. We extend panel unit root tests to allow for the presence of some financial-reform covariates and further suggest an associated but novel, semi-parametric approach. Results...

For the US the supply and wages of skilled labor relative to those of unskilled labor have grown over the postwar period. The literature has tended to explain this through “skill-biased technical change”. Empirical work has concentrated around two variants: (1) Capital-skill complementarity,...

We document the consequences of ambiguity in the empirical definition of the macroeconomic labor share. Depending on its definition, the properties of short-run fluctuations, medium-run swings, and long-run stochastic trends of the labor share may vary substantially. Based on a range of...

We suggest a new method dealing with the problem of endogeneity of the threshold variable in single regression threshold models and seemingly unrelated systems of them based on copula theory. This theory enables us to relax the assumption that the threshold variable is normally distributed and...

We compare real-time density forecasts for the euro area using three DSGE models. The benchmark is the Smets-Wouters model and its forecasts of real GDP growth and inflation are compared with those from two extensions. The first adds financial frictions and expands the observables to include a...

Labor's share of income has attracted interest in recent years reflecting its apparent decline. These falls, witnessed across many countries, are usually deemed undesirable. Any such assertion, however, begs the question of what is the socially optimal labor share. We address this question using...

We offer new evidence on the real effects of credit shocks in the presence of employment protection regulations by exploiting a unique provision in Spanish labor laws: dismissal rules are less stringent for Spanish firms with fewer than 50 employees, lowering the cost of hiring new workers....

We offer a macroeconomic assessment of China's Reform Period, highlighting several neglected channels underlining its great expansion. Estimating the supply side of the post-Reform economy reveals the relatively high (above unity) value of the elasticity of factor substitution and the...