"In his famous 1987 monograph, Robert Lucas argued that further stabilizing the business cycles that persisted in the post-War era was pointless, because these cycles had a negligible effect on societal well- being. In particular, Lucas demonstrated that society should be willing to pay only a...

"During the economic expansion of the 1990s, the United States enjoyed both low inflation rates and low levels of unemployment. Juhn, Murphy, and Topel (2002) point out that the low unemployment rates for men in the 1990s were accompanied by historically high rates of non-employment suggesting...