Search Results
Journal Article
Creative destruction in local markets
This article uses a panel of Texas restaurants' and bars' alcohol to measure the pace of creative destruction--the ongoing replacement of unproductive competitors with the new firms--and it investigates whether producers in more concentrated markets might use their market power to stabilize the industry structure. The authors find the opposite to be true: Local markets with more concentrated alcohol sales display more creative destruction.
Working Paper
Simple Markov-perfect industry dynamics
This paper develops a tractable model for the computational and empirical analysis of infinite-horizon oligopoly dynamics. It features aggregate demand uncertainty, sunk entry costs, stochastic idiosyncratic technological progress, and irreversible exit. We develop an algorithm for computing a symmetric Markov-perfect equilibrium quickly by finding the fixed points to a finite sequence of low-dimensional contraction mappings. If at most two heterogenous firms serve the industry, the result is the unique "natural" equilibrium in which a high profitability firm never exits leaving behind a ...
Working Paper
Quantitative Easing in Joseph's Egypt with Keynesian Producers
This paper considers monetary and fiscal policy when tangible assets can be accumulated after shocks that increase desired savings, like Joseph's biblical prophecy of seven fat years followed by seven lean years. The model?s flexible-price allocation mimics Joseph?s saving to smooth consumption. With nominal rigidities, monetary policy that eliminates liquidity traps leaves the economy vulnerable to confidence recessions with low consumption and investment. Josephean Quantitative Easing, a fiscal policy that purchases either obligations collateralized by tangible assets or the assets ...
Working Paper
Liquidity constraints of the middle class
There is evidence that a household's consumption response to transitory income does not decline, and perhaps increases, with the level of financial assets it holds. That is, middle class households with assets act as if they face liquidity constraints. This paper addresses this puzzling observation with a model of impatient households that face a large recurring expenditure. In spite of impatience, they save as this expenditure draws near. The authors call such saving made in preparation for a foreseeable event at a given future date "term saving." Term saving reverses the role of assets in ...
Working Paper
Issues Regarding the Use of the Policy Rate Tool
We review two nonstandard uses of the policy rate tool, which provide additional stimulus when interest rates are close to or at the effective lower bound—forward guidance and negative interest rate policy. In particular, we survey the use of these tools since the star otf the Great Recession, review evidence of their effectiveness, and discuss key considerations that confront monetary policymakers while using them.
Working Paper
Forward Guidance and Macroeconomic Outcomes Since the Financial Crisis
This paper studies the effects of FOMC forward guidance. We begin by using high frequency identification and direct measures of FOMC private information to show that puzzling responses of private sector forecasts to movements in federal funds futures rates on FOMC announcement days can be attributed entirely to Delphic forward guidance. However a large fraction of futures rates' variability on announcement days remains unexplained, leaving open the possibility that the FOMC has successfully communicated Odyssean guidance. We then examine whether the FOMC used Odyssean guidance to improve ...
Working Paper
The economics of of 'Radiator Springs:' Industry dynamics, sunk costs, and spatial demand shifts
We measure industry evolution following permanent changes in the level and location of demand for gasoline in hundreds of counties during the time surrounding the completion of Interstate Highway segments. We find that the timing and margin of adjustment depends on whether the new highway is located close to or far from the old route. When the new highway is close to the old one, there is no evidence that the number of stations changes around the time it opens. However, average station size increases by 6% before the highway is completed. When the new highway is far from the old one (say, ...
Working Paper
The financial labor supply accelerator
The financial labor supply accelerator links hours worked to minimum down payments for durable good purchases. When these constrain a household's debt, a persistent wage increase generates a liquidity shortage. This limits the income effect, so hours worked grow. The mechanism generates a positive comovement of labor supply and household debt, the strength of which depends positively on the minimum down-payment rate. Its potential macroeconomic importance comes from these labor supply fluctuations' procyclicality. This paper examines the comovement of hours worked and debt at the household ...
Working Paper
A structural empirical model of firm growth, learning, and survival
In this paper we develop an empirical model of entrepreneurs' business continuation decisions, and we estimate its parameters using a new panel of monthly alcohol tax returns from bars in the state of Texas. In our data, entrepreneurial failure is frequent and predictable. In the first year of life, 20% of our sample's bars exit, and these tend to be smaller than average. In the model, an entrepreneur bases her business continuation decision on potentially noisy signals of her bar's future profits. The presence of noise implies that she should make her decision based on both current and past ...
Working Paper
Rigid prices: evidence from U.S. scanner data
This paper uses over two years of weekly scanner data from two small US cities to characterize time and state dependence of grocers' pricing decisions. In these data, the probability of a nominal adjustment declines with the time since the last price change. This reflects differences over time in the flexibility of prices charged by a single store for a given good. We also detect state dependence: The probability of a nominal adjustment is highest when a store's price substantially differs from the average of other stores. However, extreme prices typically reflect the selling store's recent ...