Der Jom-Kippur-Krieg im Nahen Osten und die geopolitischen Reaktionen führten zu einer Reduktion der weltweiten Ölproduktion und infolgedessen zu steigenden Ölpreisen und damit verbundenen Energiekosten. Eingebettet war die damalige Lage in die Neuordnung der globalen Währungsordnung nach...

We document that the nature of business cycles evolves over the process of development and structural change. In countries with large declining agricultural sectors, aggregate employment is uncorrelated with GDP.During booms, employment in agriculture declines while labor productivity increases...

The Great Recession has inspired renewed interest in analyzing the behaviour of the economy during recession episodes, and how these temporary events can shape the productive structure of the economy for long periods. Most of the existing literature focuses on recessions at the aggregate level....

Why is GDP so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? To answer this question, we propose a theory of technological diversification. Production makes use of different input varieties, which are subject to imperfectly correlated shocks. As in endogenous growth models,...

This paper explores the relationship between output volatility and economic development. We develop a methodology to assess countries' extent of sectoral diversification. The productive structure of a country tends to be risky when the country (i) specializes in highly volatile sectors, (ii) has...

Why is GDP so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? To answer this question, we propose a theory of technological diversification. Production makes use of different input varieties, which are subject to imperfectly correlated shocks. As in endogenous growth models,...

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...

This paper develops a 9-dimensional SVAR to investigate the sources of the U.S. business cycle. We extend the standard set of identified shocks to include unexpected changes in commodity prices. Our main result is that commodity price shocks are a very important driving force of macroeconomic...

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...

Although oil price shocks have long been viewed as one of the leading candidates for explaining U.S. recessions, surprisingly little is known about the extent to which oil price shocks explain recessions. We provide a formal analysis of this question with special attention to the possible role...