Search Results
Working Paper
Some implications of using prices to measure productivity in a two-sector growth model
We construct a 2 sector growth model with sector specific technology shocks where one sector produces intermediate goods while the other produces final goods. Theoretical restrictions from this model are used to compute the time series for sector-specific TFPs based solely on factor prices and the relative price of intermediate goods to final goods over the 1959-2000 period. An aggregate TFP measure based on these series appears quite similar to the multifactor productivity measure constructed by the BLS. We find statistical evidence of structural breaks in the growth rate of our productivity ...
Journal Article
Job creation and destruction
Journal Article
Recent research on sticky prices
This Economic Letter summarizes the papers presented at the conference "Nominal Rigidities" held in San Francisco on June 16 under the joint sponsorship of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
Journal Article
Modeling the time-series behavior of the aggregate wage rate
This paper looks at the time-series behavior of the real wage relative to that of productivity. Given an exogenous, nonstationary process for productivity, we use a simple model of dynamic labor demand to show that the real wage and the marginal product of labor will be cointegrated if the representative firm chooses the profit-maximizing level of employment. Data for the postwar period satisfy this condition. On the basis of this result we estimate a vector error correction model containing prices, wages, and productivity and examine the dynamic relationships among these variables. This ...
Journal Article
Productivity shocks and the unemployment rate
Productivity grew noticeably faster than usual in the late 1990s, while the unemployment rate fell to levels not seen for more than three decades. This inverse relationship between the two variables also can be seen on several other occasions in the postwar period and leads one to wonder whether there is a causal link between them. This paper focuses on technological change as the common factor, first reviewing some recent research on the effect of technological change on the unemployment rate and then presenting some empirical evidence on the issue. While theoretical models make conflicting ...
Journal Article
Talking about tomorrow’s monetary policy today
As part of their efforts to promote economic recovery, some central banks have announced they will not raise policy rates for specified time periods. Other central banks have not been as explicit, though they have provided guidance. A comparison of the effects of the Bank of Canada's conditional promise to hold rates steady through the second quarter of 2010 with the Federal Reserve's less explicit guidance finds no evidence that market participants make distinctions between these statements.
Working Paper
Money, income, prices and interest rates: a comment
Journal Article
Cities and growth