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Working Paper

The Business Cycle and the Life Cycle

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The paper documents how cyclical fluctuations in market work vary over the life cycle and then assesses the predictions of a life-cycle version of the growth model for those observations. The analysis yields a simple but striking finding. The main discrepancy between the model and that data lies in the inability of the model to account for fluctuations in hours for individuals in the first half of their life cycle. The predictions for those in the latter half of the life cycle are quite close to the data.
06.01.2004ISSN 2573-7953 WP 04-04DOI 10.26509/frbc-wp-200404
Keywords life-cycle, hours volatility
JEL Classification Codes J22, E32

Working Papers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment on research in progress. They may not have been subject to the formal editorial review accorded official Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland publications. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Federal Reserve System.

Suggested Citation

Gomme, Paul, Richard Rogerson, James B. Thomson, and Randall Wright. 2004. “The Business Cycle and the Life Cycle.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 04-04. https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-200404