The 1998 Annual Capital Expenditure Survey (ACES) provides information on disaggregate investment across a wide range of detailed asset types for a representative sample of roughly 30,000 firms. These rich data on disaggregate investment provides us with a point-in-time snapshot of investment...

Under the strong-form of market discipline, publicly traded banks that have constantly available public market signals from their stock (and bond) prices would take less risk than non-publicly traded banks because counterparties, borrowers, and regulators could react to adverse public market...

Comparative analysis of poverty dynamics—incidence, transitions, and persistence—can yield important insights about the nature of poverty and the effectiveness of alternative policy responses. This manuscript compares poverty dynamics in four advanced industrial countries (Canada, unified...

Parents with higher education levels have children with higher education levels. However, is this because parental education actually changes the outcomes of children, suggesting an important spillover of education policies, or is it merely that more able individuals who have higher education...

This paper estimates several popular sticky-price New Keynesian models in an effort to understand whether and under what circumstances these models can usefully describe observed outcomes. We estimate and compare specifications that contain different forms of habit formation, specifications that...

Shifts in the long-run rate of productivity growth are difficult, in real time, to distinguish from transitory fluctuations. We analyze the evolution of forecasts of long-run productivity growth during the 1970s and 1990s and examine in a dynamic general equilibrium model the consequences of...

The news media affects consumers' perceptions of the economy through three channels. First, the news media conveys economic data and the opinions of professionals to consumers. Second, consumers receive a signal about the economy through the tone and volume of economic reporting. Last, when the...

Using data from the Current Population Survey, we examine recent trends in the relative economic status of black men. Our findings point to gains in the relative wages of black men (compared to whites) during the 1990s, especially among younger workers. In 1989, the average black male worker...

This paper explores the relationship between capital composition and productivity using a unique and remarkably detailed data set on firm-level investment in the U.S. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal regressions, I find that several capital types, including computers, communications...

Private placement bonds have unique financial contracting in controlling borrower-lender agency conflicts due to direct monitoring and the relative ease of future renegotiation. Our data show that private placements are more likely to have restrictive covenants and are more likely to be issued...