We propose and study properties of several estimators of variance decomposition in the local-projections framework. We find for empirically relevant sample sizes that, after being bias corrected with bootstrap, our estimators perform well in simulations. We also illustrate the workings of our...

The Great Recession and the Global Financial Crisis have left many developed countries with low interest rates and high levels of public debt, thus limiting the ability of policymakers to fight the next recession. Whether new fiscal stimulus programs would be jeopardized by these already heavy...

The fact that most of the persistent declines in output since the Great Recession have parlayed into equivalent declines in measures of potential output is commonly interpreted as implying that output will not return to previous trends. Using a variety of estimates of potential output for the...

We document a decline in the frequency of shopping trips in the U.S. since 1980 and consider its implications for the measurement of consumption inequality. A decline in shopping frequency as households stock up on storable goods (i.e. inventory behavior) will lead to a rise in expenditure...

This paper argues for a careful (re)consideration of the expectations formation process and a more systematic inclusion of real-time expectations through survey data in macroeconomic analyses. While the rational expectations revolution has allowed for great leaps in macroeconomic modeling, the...

This paper estimates how overall consumer spending responds to changes in gasoline prices. It uses the differential impact across consumers of the sudden, large drop in gasoline prices in 2014 for identification. This estimation strategy is implemented using comprehensive, high-frequency...

Countries rarely hit the zero-lower bound on interest rates, but when they do, these episodes tend to be very long-lived. These two features are difficult to jointly incorporate into macroeconomic models using typical representations of shock processes. We introduce a regime switching...

Our estimates, based on large firm-level and industry-level data sets from eighteen countries, suggest that FDI and trade have strong positive spillover effects on product and technology innovation by domestic firms in emerging markets. The FDI effect is more pronounced for firms from advanced...

Specialization is a powerful source of productivity gains, but how production networks at the industry level are related to aggregate productivity in the data is an open question. We construct a database of input-output tables covering a broad spectrum of countries and times, develop a...

This paper develops a model of global sourcing with culturally dissimilar countries. Production of final goods requires the coordination of decisions between the headquarter of a multinational firm and managers of their component suppliers. Managers of both units are assumed to have strong...