This paper analyzes the Canadian economy for the post-1960 period. It uses an accounting procedure developed in Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2006). The procedure identifies accounting factors that help align the predictions of the neoclassical growth model with macroeconomic variables observed...

From 1961 to 2007, U.S. aggregate hours worked increased and the labor wedge—measured as the discrepancy between a representative household׳s marginal rate of substitution and the marginal product of labor—declined substantially. The labor wedge is negatively related to hours and is often...

A view advanced in the aftermath of the late-2000s fi?nancial crisis is that lower than optimal interest rates lead to excessive risk taking by fi?nancial intermediaries. We evaluate this view in a quantitative dynamic model where interest rate policy affects risk taking through two channels....

I evaluate the quantitative implications of technology change and government policies for output and factor income shares during East Germany's transition since 1990. I model an economy that gains access to a high productivity technology embodied in new plants. As existing low productivity...

This paper builds a model of transition following economic reforms and analyzes the different experiences of two Central European economies after 1990. East Germany started its transition with rapid growth in output per working-age person and experienced a dramatic increase in its very low...

Asset price data imply a large degree international risk sharing, while aggregate consumption data do not. We evaluate how well a model with fixed costs of exchanging money for assets can account for this discrepancy. In our model, households receive idiosyncratic income shocks, and only a...

Despite improvements over the years, capital regulation failed to ensure stability of the financial system in the crisis that flared in the summer of 2007. The billions of dollars of write-downs on assets related to subprime mortgages raised fears of insolvency and led to lending freezes and...

Emerging market economic growth during the global recovery has exceeded performance in advanced economies. This differential has triggered a rush of private capital inflows to the emerging markets from investors seeking to maximize returns. While capital flows typically benefit receiving...

The financial crisis that began in mid-2007 brought renewed calls for an alternative to the U.S. dollar as the dominant reserve currency in international transactions. Several developing countries suggested greater use of special drawing rights (SDRs). ; SDRs were created in 1969 under the first...

Most industrialized countries confront at the same time an increasing life-span, low current birth rates and the retirement of the relatively large post World War II generation. This paper considers different policies as potential solutions to the implied funding problem of any Pay-As-You-Go...