In this paper, we develop an aggregation procedure using time-varying weights for constructing the common component of international economic fluctuations. The methodology for deriving time-varying weights is based on some stylized features of the data documented in the paper. The model allows...

We document changes in the structure of earnings during the economic transition in Poland. We find that inequality in labor earnings increased substantially from 1988 to 1996. A common view is that the reallocation of workers from a public sector with a compressed wage distribution, to a private...

This paper uses micro data from the New Earnings Survey to document that cross-sectional wage inequality in the U.K., which rose sharply in the 1980s and continued to rise moderately through the mid-1990s, has remained essentially unchanged in the latter half of the 1990s. As in the U.S.,...

This paper analyzes the evolution of inequality in Poland during the economic transition that began in 1989-90. Using micro data from the Household Budget Surveys, we find that, after a brief spike in 1989, income and consumption inequality actually declined to below pre-transition levels during...

The influential work of Ramey and Ramey (1995) highlighted an empirical relationship that has now come to be regarded as conventional wisdom – that output volatility and growth are negatively correlated. We reexamine this relationship in the context of globalization – a term typically used...

China has achieved tremendous economic progress in the last three decades, but there is much work to be done to make the economy resilient to large shocks, ensure the sustainability of its growth, and translate this growth into corresponding improvements in the economic welfare of its citizens....

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between reservation wages of unemployed workers and macroeconomic factors – including aggregate and local unemployment rates, generosity of the unemployment compensation system and characteristics of the wage structure – as well...