Various reasons have been given to explain downturns in U.S. economic activity since World War II. Romer and Romer (1989) argued that these recessions were primarily associated with monetary contractions, while Hamilton (1983) and others attributed them to oil price increases. We investigate...

Development of rational expectations models of the business cycle has been the central issue in macroeconomics over the last 15 years. The postulate that expectations are rational imposes considerable discipline on business cycle analysis. In this essay we review the current literature on...

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Recently, the Office of Management and Budget projected that the fiscal 1985 federal budget deficit would exceed $200 billion and that out-year reductions would be gradual at best. These prospects have engendered a debate concerning the economic effects of government deficits and the attendant...

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The observed shift in statistical demand-for-money relationships during the mid-1970s was once thought to reflect an unexplainable change in behavior. More recently, economists have recognized that the conventional regressions inadequately represented the demand for money. Specifically, the...

A history of the collapse of the savings and loan industry. The authors contend that FSLIC’s institutional structures, established decades ago, made a thrift crisis inevitable. Poorly designed incentive structures strongly encouraged regulators and thrift managers to delay proper action when...

This article examines three competing hypotheses and their ability to explain events in international financial markets during the 1980s. The rival hypotheses view the trade deficit as caused alternatively by large U.S. budget deficits, by tight U.S. monetary policy, or by real shocks to...

This article provides a comparative analysis of central bank operating procedures in Australia and the United States. It also examines the effect that the structure of overnight money markets, reserve requirements, and central bank lending procedures have on monetary control in both countries....

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand operates in a highly deregulated financial environment which lacks any interest rate regulation or reserve requirements. Yet the Reserve Bank has been able to implement effective monetary policy through a quantity-based procedure. This article analyzes the...