This study examines business cycle fluctuations in selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The study measures the impact of selected real shocks, namely: terms of trade shocks, commodity price shocks, and government spending shocks, on macroeconomic fluctuations in SSA. The impact of the...

This paper puts forward a systematic approach to teaching simple dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models to undergraduates. It proceeds in the following way: first, the structural model of the economy, which includes the households' and firms' problems, is presented and...

In this paper, we propose a hybrid version of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium models with an emphasis on parameter invariance and tracking performance at times of rapid changes (recessions). We interpret hypothetical balanced growth ratios as moving targets for economic agents that rely...

This paper identifies the aggregate financial shocks and quantifies their effects on business investment based on an estimated DSGE model with firm-level heterogeneity. On average, financial shocks contribute only 1.1% of the variation in U.S. public firms' aggregate investment. The negligible...

I consider a real business cycle model in which agents have private information about the i.i.d. realizations of their value of leisure. For the case of logarithmic preferences I provide an analytical characterization of the solution to the associated mechanism design problem. Moreover, I show a...

We present a unified dynamic framework to study the interconnections between international trade and business cycle models. We prove an aggregate equivalence between a competitive, representative firm model that has aggregate production externalities and dynamic trade models that feature...

In this paper, we examine the labour market properties of business cycle fluctuations for a group of 15 emerging market economies (EMEs) and the US using annual data from 1970 to 2013. We find that on average, the hours worked and employment volatility (relative to output volatility) are lower,...

In this paper, we develop and simulate an RBC model that includes intangible capital as a third factor of production. We study the effects of intra-temporal preference shocks on economic aggregates, employing the undetermined coefficient method of to solve the model. Impulse response functions...

According to current regulation, European banks can apply zero risk weights to sovereign exposures in their balance sheet, irrespective of the assigned rating. We show that a zero risk weighting of sovereign bonds has implications by distorting banks' asset allocation decisions. Due to the lower...

In this paper, we examine the labour market properties of business cycle fluctuations for a group of 15 emerging market economies (EMEs) and the US using annual data from 1970 to 2013. We find that on average, the hours worked and employment volatility (relative to output volatility) are lower,...

Speculation, in the spirit of Harrison and Kreps [1978], is introduced into a standard real business cycle model. Investors (speculators) hold heterogeneous beliefs about firm growth. Firm ownership, and thus, the firm's discount factor varies with waves of optimism and leverage. These waves...

This paper estimates the quarterly flow of migrants to the US working age population using data based on the Current Population Survey (CPS). The dynamic responses to immigration shocks are estimated in a vector autoregression. Immigration shocks, as well as technology shocks are identified...

We incorporate diagnostic expectations, a psychologically founded model of overreaction to news, into a workhorse business cycle model with heterogeneous firms and risky debt. A realistic degree of diagnosticity, estimated from the forecast errors of managers of US listed firms, creates...