During the past 200 years, most countries have entered a period of modern economic growth-consistent increases in output, input, and productivity per worker that were rare in previous centuries. Even so, a few regions of the world have experienced stagnant or falling living standards in recent...

The notion that financial asset returns are predictors of future economic activity is widespread, but detailed analyses provide little support for financial markets’ ability to reveal future economic activity. Even though the evidence on various indicators used by different researchers is...