One of the most striking aspects of the recent recession is the collapse in international trade. This paper uses disaggregated data on U.S. imports and exports to shed light on the anatomy of this collapse. We find that the recent reduction in trade relative to overall economic activity is far...

One of the most striking aspects of the recent recession is the collapse in international trade. This paper uses disaggregated data on U.S. imports and exports to shed light on the anatomy of this collapse. We find that the recent reduction in trade relative to overall economic activity is far...

What drives aggregate fluctuations? In order to test recent theories on the importance of macroeconomic and firm-level shocks, I estimate a dynamic factor model with firm-level data. Each time series, the sales growth of a specific firm, is decomposed in an unobserved common macroeconomic...

What drives aggregate fluctuations? I test the granular hypothesis, according to which the largest firms in the economy drive aggregate dynamics, by estimating a dynamic factor model with firm-level data and controlling for the propagation of firm-level shocks using a multi-firm growth model....