{"title":"Entrepreneurial rates of return and wealth inequality","authors":"Bettina Brüggemann, Zachary L. Mahone","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101298","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101298","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper confronts a model of entrepreneurship and wealth inequality with empirical patterns on rates of return across the wealth distribution. We find the quantitative model implies rates of return largely consistent with the data. Rates of return to business wealth are high, heterogeneous, negatively correlated with net worth, and persistent. Both dispersion in marginal products of capital and leverage are important for explaining the patterns in rates of return along the wealth distribution. Heterogeneous abilities explain a large portion of cross-sectional dispersion and drive persistence in individual returns.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101298"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144263876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the transition to sustained growth: The importance of recent agricultural employment","authors":"B. Ravikumar, G. Vandenbroucke","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101291","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101291","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We study a model where a single good can be produced using a diminishing-returns technology (Malthus) and a constant-returns technology (Solow). We map the former to agriculture and show that the share of agricultural employment declines at a constant rate during the economic transition and that recent observations on the share are sufficient to estimate the onset of transition. Our model implies that (i) output growth is higher and increasing after the onset of transition, (ii) during the transition, it is a first-order autoregressive process, and (iii) the rate of decline in the share of agricultural employment is a sufficient statistic for the autoregressive coefficient. Our quantitative results are consistent with these implications for developed economies over more than a century despite the changes in the sectoral composition of output and for today's developing economies in various stages of development and structural transformation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"58 ","pages":"Article 101291"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144223458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strategic complementarity in labor demand: Evidence from US industry leading firms","authors":"Andrew Yizhou Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101289","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101289","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines strategic complementarity in labor demand among industry-leading firms in U.S. local labor markets. Using online vacancy postings and a shift-share instrumental variable approach, I find that a 10% increase in other firms' vacancy postings reduces a firm's own postings by 5% to 8%. I identify wage adjustments and matching frictions as key channels underlying this complementarity. The findings highlight how strategic interactions among large firms shape labor market dynamics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"57 ","pages":"Article 101289"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143904304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alina K. Bartscher , Moritz Kuhn , Moritz Schularick , Ulrike I. Steins
{"title":"The distribution of household debt in the United States, 1950-2022","authors":"Alina K. Bartscher , Moritz Kuhn , Moritz Schularick , Ulrike I. Steins","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101288","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101288","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using new household-level data, we study the secular increase in U.S. household debt and its distribution since 1950. Most of the debt were mortgages, which initially grew because more households borrowed. Yet after 1980, debt mostly grew because households borrowed more. We uncover home equity extraction, concentrated in the white middle class, as the largest cause, strongly affecting intergenerational inequality and life-cycle debt profiles. Remarkably, the additional debt did not lower households' net worth because of rising house prices. We conclude that asset-price-based borrowing became an integral part of households' consumption-saving decisions, yet at the cost of higher financial fragility.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"57 ","pages":"Article 101288"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143868906","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Securitization and house price growth","authors":"Genevieve Nelson","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101287","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101287","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>From 2000-2006 U.S. house prices and mortgage credit grew while the relative cost of mortgage credit fell – particularly for privately securitized mortgages – suggesting a credit supply expansion. This paper compares innovations in the securitization of mortgage credit (a credit supply shock) to other candidate credit supply shocks. I model a two-layered mortgage market. This generates a novel <em>balance sheet effect</em>: changes in aggregate mortgage credit quantity are linked to changes in mortgage spreads via the interaction of financially constrained commercial banks and mortgage securitizers. Innovation in securitization (a direct relaxation of the securitizers' financial constraint) matches mortgage market dynamics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"57 ","pages":"Article 101287"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143869035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew Berg , Edward F. Buffie , Mariarosaria Comunale , Chris Papageorgiou , Luis-Felipe Zanna
{"title":"Searching for wage growth: Policy responses to the “new machine age”","authors":"Andrew Berg , Edward F. Buffie , Mariarosaria Comunale , Chris Papageorgiou , Luis-Felipe Zanna","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101286","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101286","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The current wave of technological revolution is changing the way policies work. This paper examines the growth and distributional implications of cuts in the corporate tax rate and public investment in infrastructure and education in a neoclassical growth model with “robot” capital (a broad definition of robots, Artificial Intelligence, computers, big data, digitalization, networks, sensors and servos). We find that incorporating robot capital into the model makes a big difference to policy outcomes: the trickle-down effects of corporate tax cuts on unskilled wages are attenuated, and the advantages of investment in infrastructure, and especially in education, are bigger. Based on our calibrations, grounded in new empirical estimates, infrastructure investment and corporate tax cuts dominate investment in education in a “traditional” economy. However, in an economy with robots, infrastructure investment dominates corporate tax cuts, while investment in education tends to produce the highest welfare gains of all.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"57 ","pages":"Article 101286"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143816635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Solving DSGE models with incomplete markets by perturbation","authors":"Guillermo Hausmann-Guil","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101285","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101285","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>DSGE models with incomplete markets (with one or many assets) are typically challenging to solve due to their lack of stable dynamics as risk goes to zero. To bypass this difficulty, I propose to first approximate the local dynamics of a tractable auxiliary model and then apply regular perturbation to some of the parameters to reach the model of interest. This method is easy to implement with available packages and allows researchers to solve a wide class of DSGE models around a large subset of the state-space while still relying on the implicit function theorems. Exploiting these properties, the paper develops a simple algorithm to find an auxiliary model whose deterministic steady state equals the stochastic steady state of the model of interest and builds the perturbation solution around this point. The lead application extends the two-period, multi-asset model of <span><span>Coeurdacier and Gourinchas</span></span> (<span><span>2016</span></span>, JME) to an infinite horizon setup. The calibrated model with bonds and equities delivers a large level of equity home bias and a natural link between trade and financial openness, with external asset positions comparable to the data. However, the model generates excessive risk-sharing and counterfactual co-movements of gross capital flows.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"57 ","pages":"Article 101285"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143644114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The neoclassical model and the welfare costs of selection","authors":"Fabrice Collard , Omar Licandro","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101284","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101284","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper embeds firm dynamics into the Neoclassical model in a framework with partially reversible capital and investment distortions, allowing for a simple characterization of the transitional dynamics of economies moving towards greater selection. At equilibrium, aggregate technology is Neoclassical, with the quality of capital and the depreciation rate depending on selection. As investment distortions are corrected, selection increases, and both output per capita and welfare rise at the steady state. However, selection destroys existing production capacities, leading to transitional welfare losses. When calibrated to the US, the model shows that developing countries reducing investment distortions to US levels would experience substantial steady-state welfare gains, though transitional costs could absorb 70% to 76% of these gains. While the associated welfare gains from selection at steady-state are significant, between 10% and 23%, transitional costs largely offset these additional welfare gains.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"57 ","pages":"Article 101284"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143642211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Monetary policy over the lifecycle","authors":"R. Anton Braun , Daisuke Ikeda","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101274","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101274","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We propose a quantitative model of monetary policy over the lifecycle with endogenous portfolio choices. Our model reproduces the average age profiles of asset portfolios, the empirical responses of aggregate variables, and the microeconomic responses of different age groups to a tightening in monetary policy. Households disagree about the benefits of a tighter monetary policy. Consumption and welfare of older age groups increase, but consumption and welfare of younger households fall.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 101274"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143430259","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Habit formation and news-driven business cycles","authors":"Fengqi Liu , Keqing Liu , Jianpo Xue","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101273","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.red.2025.101273","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper demonstrates that, in a standard real business cycle (RBC) model, internal consumption habits <em>alone</em> are sufficient to generate positive comovements among key macroeconomic aggregates in response to news about future productivity. We highlight <em>the prospective channel</em> associated with internal habits, through which the effect of news shocks is transmitted to the present, stimulating current consumption, labor, and investment. Without this channel, other forms of preferences such as external habits fail to generate the positive comovements. The quantitative performance of the model is also discussed. Arguably, we provide a nearly minimal departure from the RBC framework to generate news-driven business cycles.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 101273"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143419841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}