This dissertation comprises three distinct economic stduies. The first deals with the origin of business cycle fluctuations and the other two with the measurement of financial constraints and the identification of the respective treatment effect.

Numerous papers have tried to understand housing’s role in the economy and have not reached an agreement. In this paper we turn to the asymmetric relationship between housing and the overall economic activity. We find that the relation between building permits and GDP is regime-dependent....

This article shows - on both conceptual and empirical grounds - the importance of business cycles in affecting key relationships between innovation and international performance. While periods of upswing are characterised by a well documented 'virtuous circle'. between innovation inputs, new...

Keynes had a profound influence on Prebisch in terms of the diagnosis about the main failures of market economies and the need to pursue pro-active and anti-cyclical policies. However, Prebisch was critical of some aspects of Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, in...

In this paper, we examine the German business cycle (from 1955 to 1994) in order to identify univariate and multivariate outliers as well as influence points corresponding to Linear Discriminant Analysis. The locations of the corresponding observations are compared and economically interpreted.

Using CPS data from 1979–2009 we examine how cyclical downturns and industry-specific demand shocks affect wage differentials between white non-Hispanic men and women, Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites, and African-Americans and non-Hispanic whites. Women’s relative earnings are harmed by...

In this paper we set up a baseline, but nevertheless advanced and complete model representing detailed goods market dynamics, heterogeneous labor markets, dual and cross-dual wage-price adjustment processes, as well as counter-cyclical government policies. The cyclical movements of output...