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Trends in Hours, Balanced Growth, and the Role of Technology in the Business Cycle

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Jordi Gali

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Abstract

The present paper revisits a property embedded in most dynamic macroeconomic models: the stationarity of hours worked. First, I argue that, contrary to what is often believed, there are many reasons why hours could be nonstationary in those models, while preserving the property of balanced growth. Second, I show that the postwar evidence for most industrialized economies is clearly at odds with the assumption of stationary hours per capita. Third, I examine the implications of that evidence for the role of technology as a source of economic fluctuations in the G7 countries.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11130.

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Date of creation: Feb 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11130

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E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Edward C. Prescott, 1986. "Theory ahead of business cycle measurement," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 9-22. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Whelan, Karl, 2004. "Technology Shocks and Hours Worked: Checking for Robust Conclusions," Research Technical Papers 6/RT/04, Central Bank & Financial Services Authority of Ireland (CBFSAI). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1998. "Business Cycle Fluctuations in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series," NBER Working Papers 6528, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Olivier J. Blanchard & Lawrence H. Summers, 1987. "Hysteresis and the European Unemployment Problem," NBER Working Papers 1950, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "Why do Americans work so much more than Europeans?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Jul, pages 2-13. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Jordi Galí & Pau Rabanal, 2005. "Technology Shocks and Aggregate Fluctuations: How Well Does the Real Business Cycle Model Fit Postwar U.S. Data?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2004, Volume 19, pages 225-318 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  7. Christopher Erceg & Luca Guerrieri & Christopher Gust, 2004. "Can long-run restrictions identify technology shocks?," International Finance Discussion Papers 792, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  8. Susanto Basu & John Fernald & Miles Kimball, 2004. "Are technology improvements contractionary?," Working Paper Series WP-04-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Casey B. Mulligan, 2002. "A Century of Labor-Leisure Distortions," NBER Working Papers 8774, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. John Fernald, 2004. "Trend Breaks, Long Run Restrictions, and the Contractionary Effects of Technology Shocks," 2004 Meeting Papers 477, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  11. Whelan, Karl, 2006. "New Evidence on Balanced Growth, Stochastic Trends, and Economic Fluctuations," MPRA Paper 5910, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  12. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Francis, Neville R & Owyang, Michael T & Theodorou, Athena T, 2005. "What Explains the Varying Monetary Response to Technology Shocks in G-7 Countries?," MPRA Paper 834, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Jordi Gali, 1999. "Technology, Employment, and the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 249-271, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-70, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Robert Vigfusson, 2003. "What Happens After a Technology Shock?," NBER Working Papers 9819, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Hall, Robert E, 1997. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages S223-50, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  18. Neville Francis & Valerie A. Ramey, 2004. "The Source of Historical Economic Fluctuations: An Analysis using Long-Run Restrictions," NBER Working Papers 10631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-73, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Argia Sbordone, 2002. "An optimizing model of U.S. wage and price dynamics," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar. [Downloadable!]
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  21. Gabriel Fagan & Jérôme Henry & Ricardo Mestre, 2001. "An area-wide model (AWM) for the euro area," Working Paper Series 42, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  23. Neville Francis & Valerie A. Ramey, 2002. "Is the Technology-Driven Real Business Cycle Hypothesis Dead?," NBER Working Papers 8726, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  25. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : I. The basic neoclassical model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 195-232. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Peter N. Ireland & Scott Schuh, 2006. "Productivity and U.S. macroeconomic performance: interpreting the past and predicting the future with a two-sector real business cycle model," Working Papers 06-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2007. "Unmeasured Investment and the Puzzling U.S. Boom in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 13499, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2006. "Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades," NBER Working Papers 12082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2006. "Measuring trends in leisure," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
  5. Fève, Patrick & Matheron, Julien & Sahuc, Jean-Guillaume, 2007. "Optimal Monetary Policy and Technological Shocks in the Post-War US Business Cycle," IDEI Working Papers 484, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse. [Downloadable!]
  6. Ossama Mikhail, 2005. "What Happens After A Technology Shock? A Bayesian Perspective," Macroeconomics 0510016, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  7. Fabio Canova & David López-Salido & Claudio Michelacci, 2006. "On the robust effects of technology shocks on hours worked and output," Economics Working Papers 1013, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Feb 2008. [Downloadable!]
  8. Silvia Sgherri, 2005. "Long-Run Productivity Shifts and Cyclical Fluctuations: Evidence for Italy," IMF Working Papers 05/228, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-14.

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