We study how producers of capital goods set shipments in response to fluctuations in new orders. We find that shipments respond more to orders when new orders fall below a certain level relative to shipments, usually after orders plunge in recessions. This cyclical change in producers’...

We argue that the vast bulk of movements in aggregate real economic activity during the Great Recession were due to financial frictions. We reach this conclusion by looking through the lens of an estimated New Keynesian model in which firms face moderate degrees of price rigidities, no nominal...

Since the mid-2000s, Japan's industrial production (IP) has been characterized by increasing volatility. To examine the background to this, we apply the structural factor analysis developed by Foerster, Sarte, and Watson (2011) and decompose variations in Japan's IP into aggregate and sectoral...

The paper provides new evidence on possible structural breaks in the relationship among business Confidence and industrial activity in Europe in the aftermath of the recession. Possible interpretation is that the crisis has determined a change in the pattern of response in surveys, firms now...

After outlining the various methods used to estimate potential output, this article presents estimates for Malta derived from one of the most commonly used methods, i.e. the production function approach. Given the uncertainty surrounding these kinds of estimates, they are compared with those...

Since the 1980s, the labour demand has shifted toward more educated workers in the US. The most common explanation is that the productivity of skilled workers has risen relative to the unskilled, but it is not easy to explain why the aggregate labour productivity was stagnant during the 1980s....

This paper describes the key features of the Moroccan business cycles during the period 1980:q1-2012:q1. In particular, this paper identifies the chronologies in classical and growth cycles (expansion and contraction phases and full cycles in real gross domestic product). Using the modified BB...

U.S. labor and total-factor productivity growth slowed prior to the Great Recession. The timing rules explanations that focus on disruptions during or since the recession, and industry and state data rule out “bubble economy” stories related to housing or finance. The slowdown is located in...

This paper examines how the professional forecasters comprising the Blue Chip Economic Consensus view shocks to GDP. I use an unobserved components model of the forecast revisions to identify forecasters' perceptions of permanent and transitory shocks to GDP. The model indicates forecasters:...

This paper explains the key factors that determine the output multiplier of government purchases in New Keynesian models, through a series of simple examples that can be solved analytically. Sticky prices or wages allow for larger multipliers than in a neoclassical model, though the size of the...