More than 80 percent of the decline in the variance of aggregate output since 1984 is accounted for by a decline in the covariance (and correlation) of output among industries that hold inventories. Using a HAVAR macro model (Fratantoni and Schuh 2003) with only two sectors, manufacturing and...

This paper reports the results of a detailed examination of the hypothesis that improved inventory management and production techniques are responsible for the decline in the volatility of U.S. GDP growth. Our innovations are to look at the data at a finer level of disaggregation than previous...

This paper investigates how job creation and destruction behavior varies by employer size in the U.S. manufacturing sector during the period 1972 to 1988. The paper also evaluates the empirical basis for conventional claims about the job-creating prowess of small businesses. The chief findings...

What makes economies rise and fall? What caused the Asian crisis, the recessions of the 1970's and 1980's, and even the Great Depression? According to many modern economists, shocks did. This unsatisfying answer lies at the heart of a currently popular framework for analyzing business cycle...

Despite a significant decline in the pace of economic growth in the second half of 2000, macroeconomic forecasters underpredicted real GDP growth and overpredicted the unemployment rate by a significant amount, for the fifth consecutive year. On average, real GDP forecasts were about 2...

This paper is a chapter in our forthcoming monograph, Job Creation, Job Destruction, and International Competition (W.E. Upjohn Institute 2003), and expands on the ideas advanced in Klein, Schuh, and Triest (2003). The chapter is a case study of the impact of the North American Free Trade...