We identify the cyclical turning points of 74 U.S. manufacturing industries and uncover new empirical regularities: (i) Cyclical phase shifts are highly concentrated around the aggregate turning points; (ii) In contrast to the conventional notion of a ‘sudden stop and slow recovery,’ troughs...

"Studying the incentives and constraints in the non-market sector--that is, home production--enhances our understanding of economic behavior in the market. In particular, it helps us to understand (1) small variations of labor supply over the life cycle, (2) large variations of employment...

"Whether technological progress raises or lowers aggregate employment in the short run has been the subject of much debate in recent years. Using a simple model of industry employment, we show that cross-industry differences of inventory holding costs, demand elasticities, and price rigidities...