This paper investigates the claim, often put forth by Real Business Cycle proponents ("e.g. Prescott(1986)), that the poor performances of their models in matching real world aggregate labor market behavior are due to the fact that observed real wage payments do not correspond to the actual...

The traditional argument against the relevance of sector-specific shocks for the aggregate phenomenon of business cycles invokes the law of large numbers: positive shocks in some sectors are offset by negative shocks in other sectors. This paper hypothesizes that cancellation of sector-specific...

This paper investigates the claim that real business cycle models perform poorly in matching real-world aggregate labor market behavior because observed real wage payments do not correspond to the actual marginal productivity of labor but contain an insurance component not accounted for by the...

We introduce two modifications into the standard real business cycles model: habit persistence preferences and limitations on intersectoral mobility. The resulting model is consistent with the observed mean equity premium, mean risk free rate and Sharpe ration on equity. With respect to the...

This paper provides an interpretation of the evolution of Spanish private and national savings over the period 1960-1995. During these 35 years private and national saving rates oscillated widely from a very high level in the 1960s to historical minima in the early and mid-1980s to a strong...

Market booms are often followed by dramatic falls. To explain this requires an asymmetry in the underlying shocks. A straightforward model of technological progress generates asymmetries that are also the source of growth cycles. Assuming a representative consumer, we show that the stock market...