TFP Shocks Research Articles

Do Technological Improvements in the Manufacturing Sector Raise or Lower Employment?

We find that technology's effect on employment varies greatly across manufacturing industries. Some industries exhibit a temporary reduction in employment in response to a permanent increase in TFP, whereas many more industries exhibit an employment increase in response to a permanent TFP shock. This raises serious questions about existing work that finds a labor productivity shock has a strong negative effect on employment. There are tantalizing and interesting differences between TFP and labor productivity. We argue that TFP is a more natural measure of technology because labor productivity reflects shifts in the input mix as well as in technology.

Macroeconomic Volatility and the Equity Premium

Recent empirical work documents a decline in the U.S. equity premium and a decline in the standard deviation of real output growth. We investigate the link between aggregate risk and the asset returns in a dynamic production based asset-pricing model. When calibrated to match asset return moments, the model implies that the post-1984 reduction in TFP shock volatility of 60 percent gives rise to a 40 percent decline in the equity premium. Lower macroeconomic risk post-1984 can account for a substantial fraction of the decline in the equity premium.

Can the standard international business cycle model explain the relation between trade and comovement?

Recent empirical research finds that pairs of countries with stronger trade linkages tend to have more highly correlated business cycles. We assess whether the standard international business cycle framework can replicate this intuitive result. We employ a three-country model with transportation costs. We simulate the effects of increased goods market integration under two asset market structures, complete markets and international financial autarky. Our main finding is that under both asset market structures the model can generate stronger correlations for pairs of countries that trade more, but the increased correlation falls far short of the empirical findings. Even when we control for the fact that most country-pairs are small with respect to the rest-of-the-world, the model continues to fall short. We also conduct additional simulations that allow for increased trade with the third country or increased TFP shock comovement to affect the country-pair's business cycle comovement. These simulations are helpful in highlighting channels that could narrow the gap between the empirical findings and the predictions of the model.

Can the Standard International Business Cycle Model Explain the Relation between Trade and Comovement?

Recent empirical research finds that pairs of countries with stronger trade linkages tend to have more highly correlated business cycles. The authors assess whether the standard international business cycle framework can replicate this intuitive result. They employ a three-country model with transportation costs, and they simulate the effects of increased goods market integration under two asset market structures: complete markets and international financial autarky. The main finding is that under both asset market structures the model can generate stronger correlations for pairs of countries that trade more, but the increased correlation falls far short of the empirical findings. Even when the authors control for the fact that most country pairs are small with respect to the rest of the world, the model continues to fall short. They also conduct additional simulations that allow for increased trade with the third country or increased TFP shock comovement to affect the country pair's business cycle comovement. These simulations are helpful in highlighting channels that could narrow the gap between the empirical findings and the predictions of the model.

Do Technological Improvements in the Manufacturing Sector Raise or Lower Employment?

We find that technology's effect on employment varies greatly across manufacturing industries. Some industries exhibit a temporary reduction in employment in response to a permanent increase in TFP, whereas far more industries exhibit an employment increase in response to a permanent TFP shock. This raises serious questions about existing work that finds that a labor productivity shock has a strong negative effect on employment. There are tantalizing and interesting differences between TFP and labor productivity. We argue that TFP is a more natural measure of technology because labor productivity reflects shifts in the input mix as well as in technology.

Can the Standard International Business Cycle Model Explain the Relation Between Trade and Comovement?

Recent empirical research finds that pairs of countries with stronger trade linkages tend to have more highly correlated business cycles. We assess whether the standard international business cycle framework can replicate this intuitive result. We employ a three-country model with transportation costs. We simulate the effects of increased goods market integration under two asset market structures, complete markets and international financial autarky. Our main finding is that under both asset market structures the model can generate stronger correlations for pairs of countries that trade more, but the increased correlation falls far short of the empirical findings. Even when we control for the fact that most country-pairs are small with respect to the rest of the world, the model continues to fall short. We also conduct additional simulations that allow for increased trade with the third country or increased TFP shock comovement to affect the country pair's business cycle comovement. These simulations are helpful in highlighting channels that could narrow the gap between the empirical findings and the predictions of the model.

Inflation Persistence in Structural Macroeconomic Models (Rg10)

This paper analyses the response of inflation in the euro area to five macroeconomic shocks through the use of results derived from Eurosystem large-scale macroeconomic models. The main finding is that only a fiscal shock, and to a lesser extent a TFP shock, generate marked inflation persistence. In contrast, an indirect tax and an oil price shock appear much less persistent and a social security shock generates less inflation persistence in the majority of the countries (although some weak persistence was observed at the euro area level). The paper also considers evidence on the sources of persistence, which indicates that it is crucially affected by the responsiveness of wages to employment, by the sluggishness in the adjustments of the demand components, and by the speed of adjustment of employment to output and wage changes.