This paper presents a new method to estimate the amount of U.S. currency held abroad. The method exploits the fact the Federal Reserve System is the major processor of currency for depository institutions. The method exploits differentials across denominations in the ratios of shipments to...

In this paper we explore the proposition that in economies with imperfect competitive markets the optimal capital income tax is negative and the optimal tax on firms profits is confiscatory. We show that if the total factor productivity as well as the measure of firms or varieties are endogenous...

Policymakers often use measures of tax incidence (generational accounts) as criteria for policy selection. We use a quantitative model of optimal intergenerational policy to evaluate the ability of the tax incidence metric to capture the identity of recipients and contributors and the magnitudes...

In this paper we show that the generational accounting framework used in macroeconomics to measure tax incidence can, in some cases, yield inaccurate measurements of the tax burden across age cohorts. This result is very important for policy evaluation, because it shows that the selection of tax...

"The acceleration of productivity growth during the latter half of the 1990s was both the defining economic event of the decade and a major topic of debate among Federal Reserve policymakers. A key aspect of the debate was the conflict between incoming aggregate data, which initially suggested...

The acceleration of productivity growth during the latter half of the 1990s was both the defining economic event of the decade and a major topic of debate among Federal Reserve policymakers. A key aspect of the debate was the conflict between incoming aggregate data, which initially suggested...

This paper studies the macroeconomic conditions and policy environments under which stock market booms occurred among ten developed countries during the 20th Century. We find that booms tended to occur during periods of above-average growth of real output, and below-average and falling...