We show that a minimum wage can have large effects throughout the earnings distribution,using a combination of theory and empirical evidence. To this end, we develop an equilibriumsearch model featuring empirically relevant worker and firm heterogeneity. We usethe estimated model to evaluate a...

In order to improve our understanding of the channels through which monetary policy has distributional consequences, we build a New Keynesian model with incomplete asset markets, asymmetric search and matching (SAM) frictions across skilled and unskilled workers and, foremost, capital-skill...

In a simple one-sector, two-class, fixed-proportions economy, wages are set through (generalized) axiomatic bargaining a` la Nash (1950). As for choice of technology, firms choose the direction of factor augmentations to maxi- mize the rate of unit cost reduction (Kennedy, 1964, and more...

I study a model of growth and income distribution in which workers and firms bargain à la Nash (Econometrica 18(2):155–162, 1950) over wages and productivity gains, taking into account the trade-offs faced by firms in choosing factor- augmenting technologies. The aggregate environment...

This paper examines the effects of labor-replacing capital, which we call robots, on business cycle dynamics using a New Keynesian model with a role for both traditional and robot capital. We find that shocks to the price of robots have effects on output, employment, wages, and labor's share of...

This paper presents a model of secular stagnation, income and wealth distribution, and employment in the Classical Political Economy tradition, that can be contrasted with the accounts by Piketty (2014) and Gordon (2015). In these explanations, an exogenous reduction in the growth rate g...

One of the most significant stylized facts in the U.S. economy since the 1970s has been the decline in the share of national income accruing to labor. Many recent studies have sought to explain this trend, with most explanations focusing on structural changes such as deindustrialization,...

This paper surveys current debates on the distributive cycle. The literature builds on R.M. Goodwin's seminal 1967 chapter titled "A growth cycle." We review theoretical motivations for the distributive cycle, which, despite significant differences, all imply that macroeconomic activity leads...

This paper provides a theoretical and empirical reassessment of supermultiplier theory. First, we show that, as a result of the passive role it assigns to investment, the Sraffian supermultiplier (SSM) predicts that the rate of utilization leads the investment share in a dampened cycle or,...

I document seven new facts about wage changes. 1) Most pay revisions occur at yearly frequency, but a small proportion occur at idiosyncratic times. 2) Idiosyncratic pay changes are larger and more dispersed than year-end pay changes and resemble more pay changes occurring at job-to-job...