In the 1930s, Dunlop and Tarshis observed that the correlation between hours worked and the return to working is close to zero. This observation has become a litmus test by which macroeconomic models are judged. Existing real business cycle models fail this test dramatically. Based on this...

I argue that Farmer and Guo's one-sector real business cycle model with indeterminacy and sunspots fails empirically and that its failure is inherent in the logic of the model taken together with some simple labor market facts.

(replaced by Staff Report No. 196)

We describe a model for calculating the optimal quantity of debt and then apply it to the U.S. economy. The model consists of a large number of infinitely-lived households whose saving behavior is influenced by precautionary saving motives and borrowing constraints. This model incorporates a...

Many would say that children are society’s most precious resource. So, how should it invest in them? To gain insight into this question, a dynamic general equilibrium model is developed where children differ by ability. Parents invest time and money in their offspring, depending on their...

We describe several methods for approximating the solution to a model in which inequality constraints occasionally bind, and we compare their performance. We apply the methods to a particular model economy which satisfies two criteria: It is similar to the type of model used in actual research...

We show that the standard procedure for estimating long-run identified vector autoregressions uses a particular estimator of the zero-frequency spectral density matrix of the data. We develop alternatives to the standard procedure and evaluate the properties of these alternative procedures using...