Chapter 15 Data Apps

DSGE Models: The Frontier of Business Cycle Research

Explore the data of Chapter 15 without any code. Every chart below is live: hover over it to read the values, and use its buttons, menus and sliders to change what it shows.

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See also: Chapter 15 Model Apps, the chapter’s models without code.

TFP and real business cycles

Fig. 1: U.S. total factor productivity growth

Hover over the line to read each year’s TFP growth; the shaded bands are recessions, and TFP did not fall in every one.

Sources. Data: John Fernald, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, A Quarterly, Utilization-Adjusted Series on Total Factor Productivity, utilization-adjusted TFP growth of the U.S. business sector (dtfp_util, sheet annual, 2026 vintage); recession dates: NBER, U.S. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions, as the NBER-based Recession Indicator (USREC), via FRED. Prepared files: data/ch15/fig15-1.csv and data/ch15/recessions.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 15.1 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed.

Fig. 1, which TFP: the raw Solow residual and the adjusted series

Hover over a point to see its year; the raw residual moves with GDP because it counts idle workers and machines as lower TFP.

Sources. Data: John Fernald, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, A Quarterly, Utilization-Adjusted Series on Total Factor Productivity, U.S. business sector, sheet annual: output growth (dY), the raw Solow residual (dtfp), utilization (dutil) and utilization-adjusted TFP growth (dtfp_util), 2026 vintage. Prepared file: data/ch15/tfp_annual.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 15.1 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed., and its note on growth accounting.

Fig. 1, beyond the United States: TFP growth in 120 countries

Pick a country from the menu; the marked years are those in which real GDP fell, so check whether TFP fell too.

Sources. Data: Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Penn World Table 11.0 (doi:10.34894/FABVLR), TFP at constant national prices (rtfpna) and real GDP at constant national prices (rgdpna); please cite Feenstra, Robert C., Robert Inklaar and Marcel P. Timmer (2015), “The Next Generation of the Penn World Table,” American Economic Review 105(10): 3150–3182 (doi:10.1257/aer.20130954). Regions: World Bank country classifications. Prepared file: data/ch15/pwt_growth.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 15.1 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed.