Fiscal policy restrictions are often criticized for limiting the ability of governments to react to business cycle fluctuations. Therefore, the adoption of quantitative restrictions is viewed as inevitably leading to increased macroeconomic volatility. In this paper we use data from 48 U.S. states to investigate how budget rules affect fiscal policy outcomes. Our key findings are that (1) stric...

Strong differences of opinion about the labor supply elasticity prevail. One camp infers that the aggregate labor supply elasticity is large because big fluctuations in aggregate hours of work occur in response to small fluctuations in workers’ productivity over the business cycle (Prescott 2005). Another camp points to estimates of low labor supply elasticities from microeconometric studies of...

This paper analyzes the quantitative importance of adaptive learning in business cycle fluctuations. We first introduce adaptive learning in a real business cycle model and a New Keynesian model, using specifications drawn from the literature which assume that agents learn about the equilibrium laws of motion. We consider a variety of learning rules, and find that in both environments learning ...

It has been well known for at least the past two decades that the standard neo-classical growth model, notwithstanding its surprising success in explaining many aggregate phenomena, performs poorly when it comes to explaining business cycle fluctuations in the labor market. The work of Gomme, Rogerson, Rupert, and Wright (henceforth GRRW) builds on the premise that the understanding of labor ma...

This paper analyzes the ability of both economic variables and moving-average rules to forecast the monthly U.S. equity premium using out-of-sample tests for 1960–2008. Both approaches provide statistically and economically significant out-of-sample forecasting gains, which are concentrated in U.S. business-cycle recessions. Nevertheless, economic variables and moving-average rules capture diff...

The argument that policy risk, i.e. uncertainty about monetary and fiscal policy, has been holding back the economic recovery in the U.S. during the Great Recession has a large popular appeal. We analyze the role of policy risk in explaining business cycle fluctuations by using an estimated New Keynesian model featuring policy risk as well as uncertainty about technology. We directly measure un...

This paper represents a first attempt to study China’s business cycles using a formal analytical framework, namely, a structural VAR model. It is found that: (a) demand shocks were the dominant source of macroeconomic fluctuations, but supply shocks had gained more importance over time; (b) the driving forces of demand shocks were consumption and fixed investment in the first cycle of 1985–90, ...

We augment a simple Real Business Cycle model with financial intermediaries that may default on their liabilities and friction generating social costs of default. derive closed-form solution for the general equilibrium economy, providing analytical results. Endogenous generates negative skew aggregate variables positive credit spreads, as documented in empirical literature. Larger frictions str...