Most analyses of the U.S. Great Moderation have been based on structural VAR methods, and have consistently pointed towards good luck as the main explanation for the greater macroeconomic stability of recent years. Based on an estimated New-Keynesian model in which the only source of change is...

We study how total factor productivity (TFP), energy prices, and the Great Moderation are linked. First we estimate a joint stochastic process for the energy price and TFP and establish that until the second quarter of 1982, energy prices negatively affected productivity. This spillover has...

From time to time, economies undergo far-reaching structural changes. In this paper we investigate the consequences of structural breaks in the factor loadings for the specification and estimation of factor models based on principal components and suggest test procedures for structural breaks....

We build and estimate a two-sector (goods and services) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with two types of inventories: materials (input) inventories facilitate the production of finished goods, while finished goods (output) inventories yield utility services. The model is estimated...

This paper first documents the increase in the time lag with which labor input reacts to output fluctuations (the labor adjustment lag) that is visible in US data since the mid-1980s. We show that a lagged labor adjustment response is optimal in a setting where there is uncertainty about the...