Broadly defined, macroeconomic forecasting is alive and well. Nonstructural forecasting which is based largely on reduced-form correlations, has always been well and continues toquot; improve. Structural forecasting, which aligns itself with economic theory and hence rises andquot; falls with...

This paper develops a dynamic, life-cycle, general equilibrium model to study the interdependent demographic, fiscal, and economic transition paths of China, Japan, the U.S., and the EU. Each of these countries/regions is entering a period of rapid and significant aging requiring major fiscal...

We propose a measure of predictability based on the ratio of the expected loss of a short-run forecast to the expected loss of a long-run forecast. This predictability measure can be tailored to the forecast horizons of interest, and it allows for general loss functions, univariate or...

Motivated by recent developments in the bounded rationality and strategic complementarity literatures, we examine an intentionally simple and stylized aggregative economic model, when the assumptions of fully rational expectations and no strategic interactions are relaxed. We show that small...

An otherwise conventional Keynesian macro model is modified to include inventories of final goods by (1) drawing a distinction between production and final sales, and (2) allowing for a negative effect of the level of inventories on production. Two models are presented: one in which the labor...

The message of this paper can be summed up in two words: inventories matter. They matter empirically, in the sense that inventory developments are of major importance in the propagation of business cycles; and they matter theoretically, in the sense that recognition of their existence changes...

This is the first paper to document the effect of health on the migration propensities of African Americans in the American past. Using both IPUMS and the Colored Troops Sample of the Civil War Union Army Data, I estimate the effects of literacy and health on the migration propensities of...

The 2015 Paris Accord is meant to control our planet's rising temperature. But it may be doing the opposite in gradually, rather than immediately reducing CO2 emissions. The Accord effectively tells dirty-energy producers to "use it or lose it." This may be accelerating their extraction and...