How does a surprise movement in stock market volatility affect our forecasts of future output across countries? This paper studies the time series and cross-sectional responses of output to variation in stock market volatility across 27 countries over 40 years, controlling for a number of...

This paper documents the cyclical properties of financial intermediation costs and uses their dynamics to explain excess consumption volatility differences across countries in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) framework. I find that financial development levels have no role in...

The Survey of Consumer Finances indicates that, unlike subprime borrowers, prime borrowers are more likely to own investment homes during recessions than during recoveries. Drawing on this empirical fact, we present and estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that distinguishes...

One of the statements of purpose of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was “to assist those most impacted by the recession.” To consider this facet, the grants-in-aid portion of the ARRA is assessed from the perspective of fiscal federalism. We estimate a trend-stationary...