In this paper we study the evolution of the labor share in the OECD since 1970. We show it is essentially related to the capital-output ratio; that this relationship is shifted by factors like the price of imported materials or the skill mix; and that discrepancies between the marginal product of labor and the real wage (due to, e.g., product market power, union bargaining, and labor adjustment...

This paper examines how domestic, foreign, private and public investments affect incomeinequality through financial intermediary dynamics. With the exception of financial allocation efficiency, financial channels of depth and activity are good for the poor as they diminish estimated household income-inequality. Financial size does not have a significant incomeredistributive effect. Financial ef...

This paper explores the ability of some popular income distributions to model observed skewness and kurtosis. We present the generalized beta type 1 (GB1) and type 2 (GB2) distributions’ skewnesskurtosis spaces and clarify and expand on previously known results on other distributions’ skewnesskurtosis spaces. Data from the Luxembourg Income Study are used to estimate sample moments and explore ...

Comparing a process of laborand capital-augmenting technical change directed by capitalists’ maximization of profits with a counterfactual in which decentralized innovation decisions are governed by noncapitalist property relations, I claim that if the two economies start from the same technology and capital stock there’s a date T such that after T per-capita consumption is always strictly grea...

In this paper, we seek to re-establish the link between the CES production function and neoclassical growth theory. We did so in three dimensions. First, we reviewed the increasing importance of the CES technology in modern dynamic macroeconomics, in expanding not only theory but also in addressing important policy questions. Second, we argued that the importance of the CES function in growth t...

This paper presents a new framework to analyze the effects of some economics factors on the U.S. distribution of wages. The paper seeks to specifically find the contributing factors of wage inequality and show how differently these factors influence wage dynamics at various points of the distribution. This paper provides valuable information of where in the wage distribution dynamics these fact...

This study shows that annual output data of the G7 countries in the twentieth century are better characterized as transitory deviations from a (shifting) growth trend than as integrated processes. Furthermore, I find no two countries share common business cycles. JEL classification: C22, E32, 057

This paper compares the cycles in UK sectoral output generated from both univariate and multivariate unobserved components models. Common trends and cycles are found among the sectors and it is found that these help to identify the cycles in the multivariate model. JEL Classi...cation: C32, E32.

This paper examines a tractable real business cycle model with idiosyncratic productivity shocks and binding credit constraints on entrepreneurs. The model shows how firm volatility increases in combination with credit market development. It further generates the observed comovement of credit and firm volatility with output at business cycle frequencies in response to aggregate productivity sho...

This paper provides a simple dynamic optimization model of durable goods inventories. Closed-form solutions are derived in a general equilibrium environment with imperfect information and serially correlated shocks. The model is then applied to scrutinize some popular conjectures regarding the causes of the volatility reduction of GDP since 1984. JEL Classification: E22, E23, E32.