Social Security is one of America's most successful government programs. It has helped millions of Americans avoid poverty in old age. To be sure, the program faces a long-term deficit and is in need of updating. But Social Security's long-term financial health can be restored: the projected...

Does the deviation of unemployment from some natural rate provide a robust and useful way to predict changes in the inflation rate? Can economists explain why the NAIRU changes over time? Is the NAIRU a useful way to frame policy discussions despite the uncertainty surrounding its precise level?...

[Joseph Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-95, and chairman of the CEA from 1995 through February 1997.] Today, I want to share with you some of my thoughts about the possibilities and limitations of government. These thoughts are focused around a simple...

I welcome the opportunity to join in the celebration of the twenty-fifth birthday of the <em>Journal of Economic Perspectives</em>. It is wonderful to see how this "baby," which I, along with Carl Shapiro and Timothy Taylor, nurtured through its formative years—from 1984 (three years before the first...

The purpose of this paper is to describe one strand of New Keynesian literature which explores how increased flexibility of wages and prices might exacerbate the economy's downturn, and to contrast it with other strands of New Keynesian literature. This strand of literature holds that even if...

It is widely believed that the failure of the socialist experiment should have had a devastating effect on radical economics. Yet radical economics is not only alive and well, but flourishing. Years before the official demise of Marxist-socialism, they had broadened their critique of standard...