We document new evidence on the link between business failures, markups and business cycle asymmetry in the U.S. economy. We study a model where costly information-processing constraints affect exit decisions of heterogeneous firms in the presence of an aggregate demand externality. We show that...

We present a model where information processing constraints on workers and firms lead to an endogenous matching function. We provide conditions under which the matching process has a unique equilibrium computable in closed-form. The main finding is that equilibrium matching is generally...

The original Mortensen-Pissarides model possesses two elements that are absent from the commonly used simplified version: the job destruction margin and training costs. I find that these two elements enable a model driven only by productivity shocks to simultaneously explain most of the...

We develop a model of matching where participants have finite information processing capacity. The equilibrium of our model covers the middle ground between the equilibria of random matching and the directed search literatures and reproduces them as limiting cases. Our theory of targeted search...

We study the link between business failures, markups and business cycle asymmetry in the U.S. economy with a model of optimal firm exit under rational inattention. We show that the model's predictions of lagged, counter-cyclical and positively skewed markups together with counter-cyclical exit...

We present a theory of targeted search, where people with a finite information processing capacity search for a match. Our theory explicitly accounts for both the quantity and the quality of matches. It delivers a unique equilibrium that resides in between the random matching and the directed...

The number of people performing low-skill, low-pay, manual labor tasks has grown along with the number undertaking high-skill, high-pay, nonroutine, principally problem-solving jobs.

Market prices are often driven by choices later viewed as mistakes. Waves of optimism or pessimism sometimes dramatically move prices; a burst bubble of euphoria can bring significant macroeconomic consequences. ; A sudden change of sentiment may occur when a large number of stock market...

I propose a novel method of estimating the potential level of U.S. GDP in real time. The proposed wage-based measure of economic potential remains virtually unchanged when new data are released. The distance between current and potential output — the output gap — satisfies Okun’s law and...

We show that rational inattention theory of Sims (2003) provides a rationalization of choice models à la Luce and gives a structural interpretation to probability curvature parameters as reflecting costs of processing information. We use data from a behavioral experiment to show that people...