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...

This paper estimates an augmented measure of national output inclusive of environmental pollution damage in the United States economy over a 60-year period. The paper reports two primary findings. First, air pollution intensity declined precipitously from the 1950s to the modern era. Air...

This paper combines tax, survey, and national accounts data to estimate the distribution of national income in the United States since 1913. Our distributional national accounts capture 100% of national income, allowing us to compute growth rates for each quantile of the income distribution...

Much recent monetary policy analysis has featured stochastic simulations with small structural macroeconomic models that include: a spending vs. saving ( IS') sector; a price-adjustment sector; and an interest rate policy rule. The first two are frequently specified so as to reflect optimizing...

It has long been argued that cyclical fluctuations in labor and capital utilization and the presence of overhead labor and capital are important for explaining procyclical productivity. Here I present two simple and direct tests of these hypotheses, and a way of measuring the relative importance...

In this paper, we derive and estimate relationships governing variable utilization of capital and labor for a firm solving a dynamic cost-minimization problem. Our method allows for (i) imperfect competition, (ii) increasing returns to scale, (iii) unobserved changes in utilization, (iv)...

This paper considers two central problems in our statistical frameworks which impair the ability to use wealth to assess economic sustainability or the impacts of economic downturns. Some increases in wealth may reflect increased economic rents—in particular, land and exploitation rents—and...

I investigate the effects of an increase in the nominal interest rate on inflation and output in the United States and Japan during the postwar period. I postulate a structural autoregressive model that allows for transitory and permanent nominal and real shocks. I find that nominal...