Standard theory implies that the discount rates used by firms in investment decisions (i.e., their required returns to capital) determine investment and transmit financial shocks to the real economy. However, there exists little evidence on how firms' discount rates change over time and affect...

We study the macroeconomic consequences of asymmetric information between firms and external investors. To do so, we develop a heterogeneous firm macro model in which firms have private information about their quality. Private information creates a lemons problem in the market for external...

We propose a model that starts from the premise that intangible capital needs to be stored on some medium --- software, patents, essential employees --- before it can be utilized in production. Storage implies that intangible capital may be partially non-rival within the firm, leading to scale...

We argue that firms' assets, especially their tangible assets, serve as collateral restricting both secured and unsecured debt. Secured debt is explicitly collateralized, placing a lien on specific assets, which facilitates enforcement. Unsecured debt is backed by unencumbered assets and thus...

This paper investigates why the U.S. unemployment rate rose only a few percentage points despite the dramatic decline in government spending and other upheaval at the end of World War II. Using a new longitudinal data set based on archival sources and government surveys, we study the many facets...

When explaining the declining labor income share in advanced economies, the macro literature finds that the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor is greater than one. However, the vast majority of micro-level estimates shows that capital and labor are complements (elasticity less...

We analyze the adoption of clean technology by heterogeneous firms subject to financing constraints. In the model, capital goods differ in terms of their energy needs and age. In equilibrium, cleaner and newer capital requires more financial resources. Therefore, financial constraints induce an...

The standard view of housing markets holds that the flexibility of local housing supply-shaped by factors like geography and regulation-strongly affects the response of house prices, house quantities and population to rising housing demand. However, from 2000 to 2020, we find that higher income...

Defensive hiring of researchers by incumbent firms with monopsony power reduces creative destruction. This mechanism helps explain the simultaneous rise in R&D spending and decline in TFP growth in the US economy over recent decades. We develop a simple model highlighting the critical role of...

We develop a dynamic macroeconomic framework with worker heterogeneity, putty-clay adjustment frictions, and firm monopsony power to study the distributional impact of labor market policies over time. Our framework reconciles the well-known tension between low short-run and high long-run...