This paper examines an important gap in the monetary explanation of the Great Depression: the lack of a well-articulated and documented transmission mechanism of monetary shocks to the real economy. It begins by reviewing the challenge to Friedman and Schwartz's monetary explanation provided by...

This paper shows that the disproportionate impact of tight monetary policy on banks' ability to lend is largely the consequence of Federal Reserve actions aimed at reducing bank loans directly, rather than an inherent feature of the monetary transmission mechanism. We provide two types of...

Should monetary policymakers take the staff forecast of the effects of policy actions as given, or should they attempt to include additional information? This paper seeks to shed light on this question by testing the usefulness of the FOMC's own forecasts. Twice a year, the FOMC makes forecasts...

This paper uses the lessons of history to identify the sources of monetary policy successes and failures in the past and to suggest a strategy for choosing successful Federal Reserve chairs in the future. It demonstrates that since at least the mid-1930s, the key determinant of the quality of...

This paper presents and implements statistical tests of stock market forecastability and volatility that are immune from the severe statistical problems of earlier tests. Although the null hypothesis of strict market efficiency is rejected, the evidence against the hypothesis is not...

This paper uses the interwar period in the United States as a laboratory for investigating the incentive effects of changes in marginal income tax rates. Marginal rates changed frequently and drastically in the 1920s and 1930s, and the changes varied greatly across income groups at the top of...

This paper studies the welfare properties of the equilibrium timing of price changes. Staggered price-setting has the advantage that it permits rapid adjustment to firm-specific shocks but the disadvantage that it causes price level inertia and therefore increases aggregate fluctuations. Because...

The hypothesis that decreases in taxes reduce future government spending is often cited as a reason for cutting taxes. However, because taxes change for many reasons, examinations of the relationship between overall measures of taxation and subsequent spending are plagued by problems of reverse...

Estimates of growth equations have found a role for openness, particularly in explaining rapid growth among East Asian countries. But major concerns of simultaneous causality between growth and trade have been expressed. This study aims to deal with the endogeneity of trade by using as...

This paper studies the welfare effects of the relative price variability arising from inflation. When agents interact in anonymous markets, with customers buying from new suppliers each period, relative price variability benefits customers and cannot harm suppliers substantially. But if...