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作者：Acikgoz, Omer Tugrul; Kaymak, Baris
作者单位：Yeshiva University; Universite de Montreal; Universite de Montreal
摘要：During the past 50 years, the US economy has seen a rapid decline in labor union membership and a substantial rise in wage inequality. Since labor unions compress wages between skilled and unskilled workers, a rising skill premium encourages skilled workers to withdraw from the union. If this withdrawal is accompanied by a fall in the productivity of unskilled workers, firms become reluctant to hire the relatively expensive union workers, reinforcing the decline in the unionization rate. Evalu...
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作者：Luo, Sui; Startz, Richard
作者单位：Capital University of Economics & Business; University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara
摘要：The relative importance of permanent versus cyclical shocks to GDP has been found to depend on the presence or absence of a single break in mean growth. We estimate unobserved components models conditional on a trend break having occurred in any specified quarter and use the Bayesian model averaging to combine the conditional estimates. We estimate a break occurred around 2006:1. Allowing for a break significantly reduces estimates of trend variance. However, enough spread remains in the poste...
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作者：Kudlyak, Marianna
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Richmond
摘要：The user cost of labor is the expected difference between the present discounted value of wages paid to a worker hired in the current period and that paid to a worker hired in the next period. Analogous to the price of any long-term asset, the user cost, not wage, is the relevant price for a firm that is considering adding a worker. I construct its counterpart in the data and estimate that it is substantially more procyclical than average wages or wages of newly hired workers. I demonstrate an...
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作者：Schwark, Florentine
作者单位：Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain; ETH Zurich
摘要：Energy price shocks pose sudden challenges to economies. This paper examines how oil price shocks have influenced the U.S. economy over the last decades and especially focuses on the productivity slowdown in the years following an oil price shock. We extend the existing literature by considering medium-term business cycles, which consist of high-frequency components (conventional business cycles, up to 8 years) and medium-frequency components (8-50 years). We find that the medium-frequency con...
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作者：Eggertsson, Gauti; Ferrero, Andrea; Raffo, Andrea
作者单位：Brown University; University of Oxford; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
摘要：Structural reforms that increase competition in product and labor markets are often indicated as the main policy option available for peripheral Europe to regain competitiveness and boost output. We show that, in a crisis that pushes the nominal interest rate to its lower bound, these reforms do not support economic activity in the short run, and may well be contractionary. In the absence of the appropriate monetary stimulus, reforms fuel expectations of prolonged deflation, increase the real ...
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作者：Castro, Rui; Koumtingue, Nelnan
作者单位：Universite de Montreal; Universite de Montreal; World Trade Organization
摘要：Which countries find it optimal to form an economic union? We emphasize the risk-sharing benefits of economic integration. Consider an endowment world economy model, where international financial markets are incomplete and contracts not enforceable. A union solves both frictions among member countries. We uncover conditions on initial incomes and net foreign assets of potential union members such that forming a union is welfare-improving over standing alone in the world economy. Consistently w...
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作者：Garcia-Santana, Manuel; Pijoan-Mas, Josep
作者单位：Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：The Small Scale Reservation Laws (SSRL) in India are a unique case of firm-level size restrictions. We quantify their aggregate productivity costs by use of a span-of-control model extended into a multisector setting. The reallocation of top managers away from the distorted sector partly offsets the effect of the distortions. We calibrate our model using plant level data from India. Lifting the SSRL increases output by 6.8% in manufacturing and 2% in the overall economy, and TFP by 2% and 0.75...
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作者：Hatchondo, Juan Carlos; Martinez, Leonardo; Padilla, Cesar Sosa
作者单位：Indiana University System; Indiana University Bloomington; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Richmond; McMaster University
摘要：We show that some recent sovereign debt restructurings were characterized by (i) the absence of missed debt payments prior to the restructurings, (ii) reductions in the government's debt burden, and (iii) increases in the market value of debt claims for holders of the restructured debt. Since both the government and its creditors are likely to benefit from such restructurings, we label these episodes as voluntary debt exchanges. We present a model in which voluntary debt exchanges can occur in...
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作者：Backus, David
作者单位：New York University; National Bureau of Economic Research
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作者：Mendoza, Enrique G.
作者单位：University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research
