Business cycle accounting

Varadarajan Chari, Patrick Kehoe and Ellen McGrattan

No 625, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

Abstract: This paper proposes a simple method for guiding researchers in developing quantitative models of economic fluctuations. We show that a large class of models, including models with various frictions, are equivalent to a prototype growth model with time-varying wedges that, at least at face value, look like time-varying productivity, labor taxes, and capital income taxes. We label the time-varying wedges as efficiency wedges, labor wedges, and investment wedges. We use data to measure these wedges and then feed them back into the prototype growth model. We then assess the fraction of fluctuations accounted for by these wedges during the great depressions of the 1930s in the United States, Germany, and Canada. We find that the efficiency and labor wedges in combination account for essentially all of the declines and subsequent recoveries. Investment wedges play, at best, a minor role. (Replaced by Staff Report No: 328)

Keywords: Business; cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

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http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/common/pub_detail.cfm?pb_autonum_id=951

Related works:
Journal Article: Business Cycle Accounting (2007)
Working Paper: Business cycle accounting (2006)
Working Paper: Business Cycle Accounting (2004)
Working Paper: Business Cycle Accounting (2004)
Working Paper: Business Cycle Accounting (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedmwp:625

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