We compute average mark-ups as a measure of market power throughout time and study their interaction with fiscal policy and macroeconomic variables in a VAR framework. From impulse-response functions the results, with annual data for a set of 14 OECD countries covering the period 1970-2007, show...

We compute average markups as a measure of market power throughout time and study their interaction with fiscal policy and macroeconomic variables in a VAR framework. From impulse-response functions, the results, with annual data for a set of 14 OECD countries, show that the markup (i) depicts a...

In order to understand what drives aggregate fluctuations, many macroeconomic models point to aggregate shocks and discount the contribution of firm-specific shocks. Recent research from other developed countries, however, has found that aggregate fluctuations are in part driven by idiosyncratic...

We analyze monetary policy in a model where temporary shocks can permanently scar the economy's productive capacity. Unemployed workers' skill losses generate multiple steady-state unemployment rates. When monetary policy is constrained by the zero bound, large shocks reduce hiring to a point...

We construct a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model of the interaction between demography and the economy for six centuries of English history. At the core of the four overlapping generations, rational expectations model is household choice about target number and quality of children, as...

While economic theory has been applied to numerous topics in economic history, there are very few attempts to interpret major macroeconomic shocks from the perspective of standard Keynesian theory. This paper presents a history of aggregate demand and supply shocks spanning 1900 - 2016 for the...

In the sixteenth century some northwest European cities underwent institutional change. These cities removed privileges that members of certain merchant guilds enjoyed, and began to develop contractual infrastructure necessary for the functioning of modern impersonal markets. I find that these...

This paper examines the effect of French political control during the Napoleonic period on proximate causes of growth across nineteenth-century Italy, finding a strong association between the intensity of French reforms and the accumulation of both social and human capital. We demonstrate that...

This paper studies the economic and political effects of a large trade shock in agriculture – the grain invasion from the Americas – in Prussia during the first globalisation (1871-1913). We show that this shock accelerated the structural change in the Prussian economy through migration of...

This paper studies the economic and political effects of a large trade shock in agriculture – the grain invasion from the Americas – in Prussia during the first globalization (1871-1913). We show that this shock accelerated the structural change in the Prussian economy through migration of...