This paper employs newly constructed measures for productivity differentials, external imbalances, and commodity terms …-based real exchange rate and commodity terms of trade. The estimated impact of productivity growth differentials between traded …

, if they enjoy a higher productivity, or if they benefit from foreign, domestic, or communication networks. …

generates two main predictions: long-run unemployment increases with (i) a fall in long-run productivity growth and (ii) a rise … in the variance of productivity growth. Evidence based on U.S. time series and on an international panel strongly … supports these predictions. The empirical specifications featuring the variance of productivity growth can account for two U …