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Journal Article
Can trade links transmit a European crisis?
A GIIPS crisis wouldn't have too strong an effect on the U.S. economy, but an EU-wide crisis may be a serious concern.
Journal Article
Searching for the financial accelerator: how credit affects the business cycle
Firms started repaying their debts during 2008-2009, and they did so while simultaneously accumulating highly liquid assets. These two observations are puzzling if one believes firms are purportedly starving for credit but cannot obtain it.
Journal Article
The effects of wealth bubbles on consumption
Changes in wealth, according to our simple calculations, can account for almost all of the observed consumption fluctuations of the past two decades.
Journal Article
\\"Frictions in financial and labor markets\\": a summary of the 35th Annual Economic Policy Conference
This article contains synopses of the papers presented at the 35th Annual Economic Policy Conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis held October 21-22, 2010. The conference theme was ?Frictions in Financial and Labor Markets.? Leading participants in this field presented their research and commentary.
Working Paper
Analysis of numerical errors
This paper provides a general framework for the quantitative analysis of stochastic dynamic models. We review convergence properties of some numerical algorithms and available methods to bound approximation errors. We then address convergence and accuracy properties of the simulated moments. Our purpose is to provide an asymptotic theory for the computation, simulation-based estimation, and testing of dynamic economies. The theoretical analysis is complemented with several illustrative examples. We study both optimal and non-optimal economies. Optimal economies generate smooth laws of motion ...
Journal Article
The U.S. financial sector's value added: trends now and then
The U.S. financial growth between 1995 and 2006 certainly translated into record-high shareholder returns. Labor compensation returns were also dramatically high at the onset of the current crisis.
Working Paper
Oil crisis, energy-saving technological change and the stock market crash of 1973-74
The market value of U.S. corporations was nearly halved following the oil crisis of October 1973. Real energy prices more than doubled by the end of the decade, increasing energy costs and spurring innovation in energy-saving technologies by corporations. This paper uses a neo-classical growth model to quantify the impact of the increase in energy prices on the market value of U.S. corporations. In the model, corporations adopt energy-saving technologies as a response to the energy price shock and the price of installed capital falls due to investment irreversibility. The model calibrated to ...
Journal Article
Has the recent real estate bubble biased the output gap?
We offer a word of caution to policymakers: Policies based on point estimates of the output gap may not rest on solid ground.
Working Paper
Problems in the numerical simulation of models with heterogeneous agents and economic distortions
Our work has been concerned with the numerical simulation of dynamic economies with heterogeneous agents and economic distortions. Recent research has drawn attention to inherent difficulties in the computation of competitive equilibria for these economies: A continuous Markovian solution may fail to exist, and some commonly used numerical algorithms may not deliver accurate approximations. We consider a reliable algorithm set forth in Feng et al. (2009), and discuss problems related to the existence and computation of Markovian equilibria, as well as convergence and accuracy properties. We ...
Journal Article
Households during the Great Recession: the financial accelerator in action?
Households are the sector that the financial accelerator appears to have hit hardest, according to the data.