This paper evaluates the importance of microeconomic irreversibilities for aggregate dynamics using a general equilibrium approach. To this end a real business cycle model of establishment level dynamics is formulated and analyzed. Investments decisions are subject to irreversibility constraints...

This paper examines how the country-breadth of tariff protection can affect the technology adoption decisions of both domestic import-competing and foreign exporting firms. The analysis is novel in that shows how firm-level technology adoption changes under tariffs of different country-breadth....

A large literature documents the significant gap in average test scores between blacks and whites, while a related literature finds a substantial narrowing of the gap during the 1980’s, and a stagnation in convergence during the 1990’s. We use two data sources the Long Term Trends NAEP and...

This paper extends previous work on the identification of search models in which observed worker productivity is imperfectly observed. In particular, it establishes that these models remain identified even when employment histories are left-censored (i.e. we do not get to follow workers from...

This paper estimates the returns to retraining for older displaced workers--those 35 or older--by estimating the impact that community college schooling has on their subsequent earnings. Our analysis relies on longitudinal administrative data covering workers who were displaced from jobs in...

We suggest a subtle, yet far- reaching, tension in the objectives specified by the Monetary Control Act of 1980 (MCA) for the Federal Reserve’s role in providing retail payment services, such as check processing. Specifically, we argue that the requirement of an overall cost-revenue match,...

We derive five hypotheses regarding market competition, price, and advertising from a theoretical model of a profit maximizing depository institution, and test these conjectures in a simultaneous system of deposit interest rates and advertising expenditures for a data panel of 1,867 thrift...

The recent banking literature has evaluated the impact of mergers on the efficiency of the merging parties [e.g., Rhoades (1993), Shaffer (1993), Fixler and Zieschang (1993)]. Similarly, there has been analysis of the impact of eliminating bank entry restrictions on the average performance of...

Since the late 1980s, the Japanese has experienced tremendous rise and fall of asset prices and large fluctuations of real economic activity, while general price level has remained relatively stable. Such developments raised a question of whether monetary policy should have targeted asset prices...

Recent legislation has increased the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standard by 40 percent, which represents the first major increase in the standard since its creation in 1975. Previous analysis of the CAFÉ standard has focused on the short run effects, in which vehicle characteristics...