The authors propose a new method for estimating the power-law exponents of firm size variables. Their focus is on how to empirically identify a range in which a firm size variable follows a power-law distribution. On the one hand, as is well known a firm size variable follows a power-law distribution only beyond some threshold. On the other hand, in almost all empirical exercises, the right end...

The authors describe the principal results obtained from a new method applied to the estimation of potential U.S. GDP. This method derives from the work of Rennison (2002), which suggests that the joint use of extended multivariate filters and structural vector autoregression models is optimal for estimating potential output. The authors use this approach to estimate the two components of poten...

This article adds technology choice to a free-entry Cournot model with linear demand and constant marginal costs. Firms can choose from a discrete set of technologies. This simple framework yields non-existence of equilibrium, existence of multiple equilibria and equilibria in which ex-ante identical ̄rms choose di®erent technologies as possible outcomes. I provide a full characterization of th...

This paper provides the first estimates of purchasing power parity (PPP) converters from the production side between China and the UK for the early 1910s. It gives a new starting point to evaluate the economic development in pre-modern China during the early industrialization since the late 19 th century. The estimated PPPs for manufacturing industries provide relative levels of producer prices...

Equilibrium Wage and Employment Dynamics in a Model of Wage Posting without Commitment A rich but tractable variant of the Burdett-Mortensen model of wage setting behavior is formulated and a dynamic market equilibrium solution to the model is defined and characterized. In the model, firms cannot commit to wage contracts. Instead, the Markov perfect equilibrium to the wage setting game, charact...

This paper uses factor analytic methods to decompose industrial production (IP) into components arising from aggregate shocks and idiosyncratic sector-specific shocks. An approximate factor model finds that nearly all (90%) of the variability of quarterly growth rates in IP are associated with common factors. Because common factors may reflect sectoral shocks that have propagated by way of inpu...