We look at disaggregated imports of various types of equipment to make inferences on cross-country differences in the composition of equipment investment. We make three contributions. First, we document large differences in investment composition. Second, we explain these differences as being...

This paper explores the relationship between capital composition and productivity using a unique and remarkably detailed data set on firm-level investment in the U.S. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal regressions, I find that several capital types, including computers, communications...

This paper provides the first application of the compensating differential paradigm to the evaluation of the extent and sources of evolution in quality-of-life among U.S. states. In addition to providing estimates of quality-of-life rankings for U.S. states over the 1981-1990 period, we use...

Although it is generally recognized that the equilibrium real interest rate (ERR) varies over time, most recent work on policy analysis has been carried out under the assumption that this rate is constant. We show how this assumption can affect inferences about the conduct of policy in two...

This paper provides a counterexample to the simplest version of the redistribution models considered by Judd (1985) in which the government chooses an optimal distortionary tax on capitalists to finance a lump-sum payment to workers. I show that the steady-state optimal tax on capital income is...

This paper examines the incidence and welfare costs of inflation in the presence of financial market frictions and home production. The results suggest that financing constraints on firms' working capital expenditures significantly increase the welfare costs relative to the standard...

Covariance matrix forecasts of financial asset returns are an important component of current practice in financial risk management. A wide variety of models, ranging from matrices of simple summary measures to covariance matrices implied from option prices, are available for generating such...

We study earnings mobility and instability using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our main contribution is to update mobility and instability calculations to include data from the 1990s, although we also provide a number of tests of robustness across mobility and instability...

This paper derives a formula for the optimal forecast of a discounted sum of future values of a random variable. This problem reflects a preference for robustness in the presence of (unstructured) model uncertainty. The paper shows that revisions of a robust forecast are more sensitive to new...

Using a short-term interest rate as the monetary policy instrument can be problematic near its zero bound constraint. An alternative strategy is to use a long-term interest rate as the policy instrument. We find when Taylor-type policy rules are used to set the long rate in a standard New...