Much of the new growth literature stresses country characteristics, such as education levels or political stability, as the dominant determinant of growth. However, growth rates are highly unstable over time, with a correlation across decades of .1 to .3, while country characteristics are...

This paper develops an algorithm for analyzing discrete events, such as labor market transitions, when some of these transitions are spurious because of measurement errors. Our algorithm extends the standard multinomial logit model, although our basic approach could be used with other stochastic...

We propose an explanation for the wide variation in rates of taxation across developed economies, based on differences in labor market institutions. In "corporatist" economies, which feature centralized labor markets, taxes on labor input will be less distortionary than when labor supply is...

Compared to the U.S. national accounts, the Japanese accounts understate consumption and government spending, and therefore overstate the national saving rate. Recently, Hayashi has recalculated Japan's national saving according to the American Department of Commerce definition and found that...

Using data from the United Nations Comparison Project and the Penn World Table, we find that machinery and equipment investment has a strong association with growth: over l9&)?l95 each percent of GDP invested in equipment is associated with an increase in GDP growth of 1/3 a percentage point per...

This paper summarizes our earlier research documenting the characteristic speculative dynamics of many asset markets and suggests a framework for understanding them. Our model incorporates "feedback traders," traders whose demand is based on the history of past returns rather than the...

This paper presents evidence on the characteristic speculative dynamics of a wide range of asset returns. It highlights three stylized facts. First, returns tend to be positively serially correlated at high frequency. Second, returns tend to be negatively serially correlated over long horizons....

This paper argues that the versions of both permanent income and life-cycle theories which have recently become fashionable are inconsistent with the grossest features of cross-country and cross-section data on consumption and income. There is clear evidence that consumption and income growth...

Analyses of the role of rational speculators in financial markets usually presume that such investors dampen price fluctuations by trading against liquidity or noise traders. This conclusion does not necessarily hold when noise traders follow positive-feedback investment strategies buy when...

Recent empirical research has identified a significant amount of volatility in stock prices that cannot be easily explained by changes in fundamentals; one interpretation is that asset prices respond not only to news but also to irrational "noise trading." We assess the welfare effects and...