This paper studies a model that includes investment-specific technological shocks, a variable capacity utilization rate, and endogenous product entry subject to sunk product development costs. These factors constitute a powerful amplification mechanism as they interact with each other. The model...

Using a unique German firm-level data set, this paper is the first to jointly study the cyclical properties of the cross-sections of firm-level real value added and Solow residual innovations, as well as capital and employment adjustment. We find two new business cycle facts: 1) The...

Is time-varying firm-level uncertainty a major cause or amplifier of the business cycle? This paper investigates this question in the context of a heterogeneousfirm RBC model with persistent firm-level productivity shocks and lumpy capital adjustment, where cyclical changes in uncertainty...

Transactions of used durables are large and cyclical, but their interaction with purchases of new durables has been neglected in business-cycle studies. I fill in this gap by introducing a new business-cycle model of durables where households resell their goods to the second-hand market and the...

Using firm-level survey data for the West German manufacturing sector, this paper revisits the technology-driven business cycle hypothesis for the case of aggregate investment. We construct a survey-based measure of technology shocks to gauge their contribution to short-run investment...

The ifo Investment Survey asks firms in the German manufacturing sector about the importance of sales, technological factors, finance, return expectations, and macroeconomic policy for their investment activity in a given year. We show that these subjective investment determinants 1) capture...

Using firm-level survey data for the West German manufacturing sector, this paper revisits the technology-driven business cycle hypothesis for the case of aggregate investment. We construct a survey-based measure of technology shocks to gauge their contribution to short-run investment...

This paper provides a simple model of deleveraging that surfaces the contradictions inherent in neoliberal financialization and explains the pattern of US business cycles over the past thirty years. Deleveraging involves a two step correction. The first step is when a borrowing boom ends. The...

In this paper I make use of Bayesian methods to estimate a firm-specific capital DSGE model with Calvo price and wage setting. This approach allows me to firmly conclude that firm-specific capital is highly relevant in improving the fit of New Keynesian models to the data as shown by a large...

The growth performance of countries proved to be very different during the recent financial crisis. The objective of the paper is to investigate why, despite the fact that the crisis hit countries simultaneously, the length and depth of the crisis turned out to be very different across...