This paper uses a tractable macroeconomic model with idiosyncratic human capital risk and incomplete markets to analyze the growth and welfare effects of business cycles. The analysis is based on the assumption that the elimination of business cycles eliminates the variation in idiosyncratic...

The papers in this volume study nine depressions - both from the interwar period in Europe and America and from more recent times and Latin America - using a common framework. All of the papers rely on growth accounting to decompose changes in output into the portions due to changes in factor...

This paper considers transition dynamics associated with a change in the rate of technological progress, using a general equilibrium framework that incorporates stochastic technology growth trends. The model suggests that these dynamics are associated with protracted transition periods,...

Argentina suffered a depression in the 1980s that was as severe as the Great Depression experienced in the United States and Germany in the interwar period. Our paper examines this depression from the perspective of growth theory, taking total factor productivity as exogenous. The predictions of...

This paper construct a two-sector model of two-period lived overlapping generations with endogenous occupational choice where ability-heterogeneous agents choose whether to become educated when young. We show that the steady-state equilibrium can be locally indeterminate even under linear...

Over the last fifty years there have been large secular increases in educational attainment and R&D intensity. The fact that these trends have not stimulated more rapid income growth has been a persistent puzzle for growth theorists. We construct a model of endogenous economic growth in which...

We present an endogenous growth model where innovations are factor saving. Technologies can be changed paying a cost and technological change takes place only if the benefits are larger than the costs. Since the gains derived from factor saving innovations depend on factor abundance, biased...

This paper proposes a measure of the welfare cost of volatility derived from a stochastic endogenous growth model extended to the case of a recursive utility function which disentangles risk aversion from intertemporal elasticity of substitution. The measure of the welfare cost of volatility...

We study a dynamic model where growth requires both long-term investment and the selection of talented managers. When ability is not ex-ante observable and contracts are incomplete, managerial selection imposes a cost, as managers facing the risk of being replaced choose a sub-optimally low...

An important determinant of informality in a country is its tax enforcement capacity, which some authors argue further distorts the decisions of firms and creates inefficiency. In this paper, I assess the quantitative effect of incomplete tax enforcement on aggregate output and productivity...