The best predictor of current investment at the firm level is lagged investment. This lagged-investment effect is empirically more important than the cash-flow and Q effects combined. We show that the specification of investment adjustment costs proposed by Christiano et al. (2005) predicts the...

We present an endogenous growth model that explains the evolution of the first and second moments of productivity growth at the aggregate and firm level during the post-war period. Growth is driven by the development of both (i) idiosyncratic R&D innovations and (ii) general innovations that can...

Has greater turbulence among firms fueled rising wage instability in the U.S.? We find strong support for the hypothesis that rising turbulence in the sales of large publicly-traded U.S. firms over the past three decades has raised their workers' high-frequency wage volatility. Through controls...

We revisit and critically reevaluate the widely accepted modernization hypothesis which claims that per capita income causes the creation and the consolidation of democracy. Existing studies find support for this hypothesis because they fail to control for the presence of omitted variables....

We provide a simple framework for comparing market allocations with government-regulated allocations. Governments can collect information about individuals' types and enforce transfers across individuals. Markets (without significant government intervention) have to rely on transactions that are...