We document that the U.S. economy has been characterized by an increasingly negative business cycle asymmetry over the last three decades. This finding can be explained by the concurrent increase in the financial leverage of households and firms. To support this view, we devise and estimate a...

We document that the U.S. economy has been characterized by an increasingly negative business cycle asymmetry over the last three decades. This finding can be explained by the concurrent increase in the financial leverage of households and firms. To support this view, we devise and estimate a...

This paper deals with the implications of factor demand linkages for monetary policy design. We consider a dynamic general equilibrium model with two sectors that produce durable and non-durable goods, respectively. Part of the output of each sector serves as a production input in both sectors,...

This paper argues that important insights into the business cycle can be obtained by exploring the micro-structure of macroeconomic fluctuations. We fit firm-level growth data with the Asymmetric Exponential Power density, which accounts for asymmetric dispersion and kurtosis on either side of...

This paper contributes to a recent debate about the structural and institutional conditions under which discretionary monetary policy-making may be superior to timeless perspective. To this end, we formulate an input-output economy in which firms' technology employs both labor and intermediate...

We study the normative implications of a New Keynesian model featuring intersectoral trade of intermediate goods between two sectors that produce durables and non-durables. The interplay between durability and sectoral production linkages fundamentally alters the intersectoral stabilization...

The nexus between firm growth, size and age in U.S. manufacturing is examined through the lens of quantile regression models. A number of interesting features are unveiled that linear frameworks could not detect. Size pushes both low and high performing firms towards the median rate of growth,...