We document that most democratic transitions are preceded by lengthy episodes of mass political unrest. These episodes are associated with an increased probability of political disruption and significant macroeconomic losses, especially in non-democracies and even in the absence of violence....

In the context of a quantitative real business cycle (RBC) model, we document that shocks to the higher-order moments, especially the skewness, of productivity can have large first-order effects on business cycles. We augment a standard small open economy RBC model with a new feature: a discrete...

In the context of a quantitative real business cycle (RBC) model, we document that shocks to the higher-order moments, especially the skewness, of productivity can have large first-order effects on economic growth. We augment a standard small-open- economy RBC model with a new feature: a...

The puzzle of "uphill capital flows," where capital flows out of countries with relatively lower capital stocks and faster-growing TFP, has reattained prominence in the two decades preceding the recent financial crisis in the form of a large and persistent United States trade deficit with the...

The assumption of rational expectations is potentially a serious source of misspecification in DSGE models. Many recent theories of expectations formation have relaxed rational expectations and improved the predictive properties of benchmark macroeconomic models. Problematically, the space of...

This paper estimates the contributions of trade and financial linkages to the directed graph that describes the international propagation of macroeconomic shocks at the business cycle frequency. Among the findings: import and export intensity are asymmetrically associated with shock...