We develop a simple menu-cost model with non-constant elasticity of demand that features idiosyncratic productivity and demand shocks. The model is calibrated to match firm-level productivity and demand processes estimated from U.S. data. Despite its simplicity, the calibrated model delivers...

This paper studies competing sources of declining dynamism. Evidence shows that an important component of this decline is accounted for by the reduction in the response of employment to shocks in US establishments. Using a plant level dynamic optimization problem as a framework for analysis,...

This paper studies the dynamics of labor demand at the plant and aggregate levels. The correlation of hours and employment growth is negative at the plant level and positive in aggregate time series. Further, hours and employment growth are about equally volatile at the plant level while hours...

We study labor adjustment costs. We specify a dynamic optimization problem at the plant-level, allowing for both convex and non-convex adjustment costs. We estimate the parameters of the adjustment process using an indirect inference procedure in which simulated moments are matched with data...

This paper studies capital adjustment at the establishment level. Our goal is to characterize capital adjustment costs, which are important for understanding both the dynamics of aggregate investment and the impact of various policies on capital accu- mulation. Our estimation strategy searches...

This paper studies hours, employment, vacancies and unemployment at micro and macro levels. It is built around a set of facts concerning the variability of unemployment and vacancies in the aggregate and, at the establishment level, the distribution of net employment growth and the comovement of...

We study the inferences about labor adjustment costs obtained by the 'gap methodology' of Caballero and Engel [1993] and Caballero, Engel and Haltiwanger [1997]. In that approach, the policy function of a manufacturing plant is assumed to depend on the gap between a target and the current level...