Using confidential Census data on U.S. manufacturing plants, we document that most of the dispersion in investment rates across plants occurs within firms instead of across firms. Between firm dispersion is almost acyclical, but within-firm dispersion is strongly procyclical. To investigate the...

Using plant-level data, I show that the dispersion of total factor productivity in U.S. durable manufacturing is greater in recessions than in booms. This cyclical property of productivity dispersion is much less pronounced in non-durable manufacturing. In durables, this phenomenon primarily...

Maritime loans in late classical and early Hellenistic Athens stand out by their high annualised interest rate usually ranging between 60 and 100%. Evaluating the information about loan contracts given in legal speeches delivered in Athenian courts during the 4th century BC, I claim that this...

Using a standard production model, we demonstrate theoretically that, even if labor is fully flexible, it generates a form of operating leverage if (a) wages are smoother than productivity and (b) the capital-labor elasticity of substitution is strictly less than one. Our model supports using...

Firms employ a rich variety of pricing strategies whose implications for aggregate price dynamics often diverge. This situation poses a challenge for macroeconomists interested in bridging micro and macro price stickiness. In responding to this challenge, we note that differences in macro price...

Price rigidity is often modeled by assuming that firms face a fixed cost of price change. However, in surveys, firms report that the main reason they wish to keep prices stable is for fear of antagonizing customers. Moreover, marketing studies show that most consumers engage in very little...

Firms employ a rich variety of pricing strategies whose implications for aggregate price dynamics often diverge. This situation poses a challenge for macroeconomists interested in bridging micro and macro price stickiness. In responding to this challenge, we note that differences in macro price...