The University of Michigan
Department of Economics
311 Lorch Hall
611 Tappan Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220
Tel: (734) 763-9620
Fax: (734) 764-2769
Email: jlaitner@umich.edu
Technological Change and the Stock Market
Since 1954, Tobin's average q has been well above 1 most of the time, but fell below 1 during the period 1974-84.
We construct a growth model that can explain these phenomena and reconcile a fall in average q with
unchanging aggregate investment
Aggregate Returns to Scale and Embodied Technical Change: Theory
and Measurement Using Stock Market Data
We develop a new general equilibrium growth accounting framework that features increasing
returns to scale, imperfect competition and incorporates technological revolutions into the
description of technical progress. We use our framework to jointly estimate the overall
embodied TFP change during 1953-1995 and the aggregate output elasticity.
Wealth Accumulation in the U.S.: Do Inheritances and Bequests Play
a Significant Role?
This paper formulates an overlapping generations model with both life-cycle saving and altruistic bequests.
It calibrates the model, using the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances, and 1995 Federal estate tax revenues.
Then it simulates the model's steady-state equilibrium, including the distribution of private wealth.
We find the model can reproduce the high degree of wealth concentration evident in U.S. data. Perhaps even
more surprising, outcomes suggest the U.S. economy's long--run capital-to-output ratio will be insensitive
to changes in national debt and social security.
``Earnings Within Education Groups and Overall Productivity Growth,'' Journal of Political Economy 108 (August 2000): 807-832.
``Social Security Reform and National Wealth,'' Scandinanvian Journal of Economics 102 (2000): 349-371.
``Bequest Motives: A Comparison of Sweden and the United States'' (with Henry Ohlsson), Journal of Public Economics 79 (January 2001): 205-236.
``Secular Changes in Wealth Inequality and Inheritance'' Economic Journal 111 (October 2001): 691-721.
``Wealth Inequality and Altruistic Bequests'' American Economic Review 92, no. 2 (May 2002): 270-273.
``Technological Change and the Stockmarket'' (with Dmitriy Stolyarov), American Economic Review (September 2003), to appear.
``Aggregate Returns to Scale and Embodied Technical Change: Theory and Measurement Using Stock Market Data'' (with Dmitriy Stolyarov), Carnegie-Rochester Conference volume of Journal of Monetary Economics, to appear.