What drove western population growth in the U.S. during the 19th century? The facts are: (i) The birth ratio was higher in the West than in the East. Both exhibited a secular decline. (ii) Between 1800 and 1810 net migration accounted for 88% of the rate of population growth in the northwest...

We develop a quantitative theory of gender differences in labor market participation, hours worked, labor turnover, and human capital accumulation. In our theory, young females expect to face higher labor turnover and to work less hours than males because they allocate time to child rearing. As...

We formulate a version of the growth model in which production is carried out by heterogeneous plants and calibrate it to US data. In the context of this model we argue that differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants may be a significant factor in accounting for...

To study the political economy of immigration, we develop a common agency model where a trade union and a lobby of entrepreneurs offer contributions to the government to influence its decision on how many immigrants can enter the domestic economy. In the political equilibrium, anticipating that...

Many countries run substantial inflations. They do this despite the overwhelming theoretical arguments (and empirical evidence?) showing that price stability (or even mild deflation) is "better." This paper provides a simple model in which a government sometimes uses the inflation tax because it...

This paper uses a seminonparametric model and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to estimate life cycle profiles of consumption, controlling for demographics, cohort and time effects. In addition to documenting profiles for total and nondurable consumption, we devote special attention to the age...

Tobin's Q exceeds one, even without any adjustment costs, for a firm that earns rents as a result of monopoly power or of decreasing returns to scale in production. Even when there are no adjustment costs and marginal Q is always equal to one, Tobin's Q is informative about the firm's growth...

Economies respond differently to aggregate shocks that reduce output. While some countries rapidly recover their pre-crisis trend, others stagnate. Recent studies provide empirical support for a connection between aggregate growth and plant dynamics through their effect on productivity: the...

We construct a bilateral search model of the housing market in which agents differ in their flow rewards while searching. Buyers and sellers enter the market with high flow rewards, but move at a Poisson rate to a state with low flow rewards if they do not transact in the meantime. We...

The paper sets out a monetary business cycle model extended to include the production of credit that serves as an alternative to money in transactions and is subject to productivity shocks. The model provides some improvement on certain puzzles, in particular by capturing the procyclic movements...