TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gali,Jordi
TI  - Trends in Hours, Balanced Growth, and the Role of Technology in the Business Cycle
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11130
PY  - 2005
Y2  - February 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11130
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11130.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jordi Gali
Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI)
Ramon Trias Fargas 25
08005 Barcelona
SPAIN
Tel: 011-34-93-5422754
Fax: 011-34-93-5421860
E-Mail: jgali@crei.cat
AB  - 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.
ER  -