The present paper revisits a property embedded in most dynamic macroeconomic models: the stationarity of hours worked. First, I argue that, contrary to what is often believed, there are many reasons why hours could be nonstationary in those models, while preserving the property of balanced...

The present paper provides an overview of recent developments in the analysis of monetary policy in the presence of nominal rigidities. The paper emphasizes the existence of several dimensions in which the recent literature provides a new perspective on the linkages among monetary policy,...

Using data for the G7 countries, I estimate conditional correlations of employment and productivity, based on a decomposition of the two series into technology and non-technology components. The picture that emerges is hard to reconcile with the predictions of the standard Real Business Cycle...

We modify the standard real business cycle model by assuming that wages are set by a monopoly union at the firm level. In the context of such a model, we introduce a measure of unemployment and analyze its equilibrium behavior. We show that a calibrated version of the model is capable of...

This paper investigates empirically and attempts to identify the sources of real exchange rate fluctuations since the collapse of Bretton Woods. The paper's first two sections survey and extend earlier, non-structural empirical work on this subject by Campbell and Clarida (1987), Meese and...

We develop a utility based model of fluctuations, with nominal rigidities, and unemployment. In doing so, we combine two strands of research: the New Keynesian model with its focus on nominal rigidities, and the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model, with its focus on labor market frictions and...

Recent evidence on the effect of government spending shocks on consumption cannot be easily reconciled with existing optimizing business cycle models. We extend the standard New Keynesian model to allow for the presence of rule-of-thumb (non-Ricardian) consumers. We show how the interaction of...

We lay out an optimizing multicountry framework suitable for fiscal policy analysis in a monetary union. We show that, for any given member country, the relinquishment of monetary policy independence, coupled with nominal price rigidity, generates a motive for fiscal stabilization beyond the...

We document three changes in postwar US macroeconomic dynamics: (i) the procyclicality of labor productivity has vanished, (ii) the relative volatility of employment has risen, and (iii) the relative (and absolute) volatility of the real wage has risen. We propose an explanation for all three...

We estimate a version of the Smets-Wouters model with unemployment.