We document several important changes in the nature of economic fluctuations that coincide with the onset of the Great Moderation and the Jobless Recoveries phenomenon. Labor productivity turned from strongly procyclical to countercyclical; sectoral reallocation of labor increased and became...

There seems to be a widespread belief among economists, policy-makers, and members of the media that the “confidence” of households and firms is a critical component of the transmission of fiscal policy shocks into economic activity. In this paper we take this proposition to the data. We use...