This paper examines the precision of conventional estimates of the NAIRU and the role of the NAIRU and unemployment in forecasting inflation. The authors find that, although there is a clear empirical Phillips relation, the NAIRU is imprecisely estimated, forecasts of inflation are insensitive...

Angrist and Pischke highlight one aspect of the research that has positively transformed econometric practice and teaching. They emphasize the rise of experiments and quasi-experiments as credible sources of identification in microeconometric studies, which they usefully term "design-based...

This feature addresses the history of economic words and ideas. The hope is to deepen the workaday dialogue of economists, while perhaps also casting new light on ongoing questions.

This paper critically reviews the use of vector autoregressions (VARs) for four tasks: data description, forecasting, structural inference, and policy analysis. The paper begins with a review of VAR analysis, highlighting the differences between reduced-form VARs, recursive VARs and structural...

Raj Chetty is eminently deserving of being awarded the John Bates Clark Medal at the age of 33. His research has transformed the field of public economics. His work is motivated by important public policy issues in the fields of taxation, social insurance, and public spending for education. He...

Martin Feldstein interviewed Paul Volcker in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on July 10, 2013, as part of a conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research on "The First 100 Years of the Federal Reserve: The Policy Record, Lessons Learned, and Prospects for the Future." Volcker was Chairman of...

Governments around the world have enacted or are currently considering fundamental structural reforms of their Social Security pension programs. The key feature in these reforms is a shift from a pure pay-as-you-go tax-financed system, in which taxes on current workers are primarily distributed...

EMU would be an economic liability. A single currency would cause, at most, small trade and investment gains but would raise average cyclical unemployment and possibly raise inflation, perpetuate structural unemployment, and increase the risk of protectionism. EMU is nevertheless being pursued...

The massive deficit in the U.S. trade and current accounts is one of the most striking features of the current global economy and, to some observers, one of the most worrying. Although the current account deficit finally began to shrink in 2007, it remained at more than 5 percent of GDP -- more...