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

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Jordi Galí ()

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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 fl uctuations in the G7 countries.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in its series Economics Working Papers with number 829.

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Date of creation: Jan 2005
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Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:829

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Related research
Keywords: real business cycles; technology shocks; market frictions; balanced growth path; stationarity of hours;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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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. 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:
  3. 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:
  4. 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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  5. 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!]
  6. 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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  7. 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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  8. Casey B. Mulligan, 2002. "A Century of Labor-Leisure Distortions," NBER Working Papers 8774, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. 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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  12. 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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  13. Neville Francis & Michael T. Owyang & Athena T. Theodorou, 2005. "What explains the varying monetary response to technology shocks in G-7 countries?," Working Papers 2004-002, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Robert Vigfusson, 2003. "What happens after a technology shock?," International Finance Discussion Papers 768, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  15. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2001. "Nominal rigidities and the dynamic effects of a shock to monetary policy," Working Paper Series WP-01-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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  16. 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)
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  18. 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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  19. 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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  20. 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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  21. 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)
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  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)
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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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