The recent empirical literature that uses Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVAR) has shown that productivity shocks identified using long--run restrictions lead to a persistent and significant decline in hours worked. This evidence calls into question standard RBC models in which a positive...

This paper quantitatively evaluates the ability of a Kydland and Prescott type model with permanent technology shocks and labor wedges to reproduce output persistence together with persistent impulse response functions of output to permanent and transitory shocks. When calibrated on US labor...