Showing 1 - 10 of 65
This paper briefly summarizes the analysis and findings of the 1996 Boskin Commission Report, Toward a More Accurate Measure of the Cost of Living. It then reviews the comments and criticisms that appeared soon after the Report was issued and provides responses to the more important criticisms....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012470991
This paper assesses the standard data on output, labor input, and capital input, which imply one big wave' in multi-factor productivity (MFP) growth for the United States since 1870. The wave-like pattern starts with slow MFP growth in the late 19th century, then an acceleration peaking in...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012470998
This paper examines the macroeconomic aftermath of the 1992 breakdown of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The economic performance of six leaver' nations is compared with five stayer' nations that maintained a roughly fixed parity with the Deutsche Mark. Recent writing about...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471843
This paper studies the dynamic behavior of changes in productivity, wages, and prices. Results are based on a new data set that allows a consistent analysis of the aggregate economy, the manufacturing sector, and the nonmanufacturing sector. Results are presented for the U. S., Japan, and an...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477000
The partial-adjustment approach to the specification of the short-run demand for money has dominated the literature for more than a decade. There are three basic problems with this approach. First, the same lag structure is imposed on all variables, and each independent variable enters only as a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477668
The velocity of both M1 and M2 appears to have experienced a sharp and persistent downward shift during 1981 and 1982. The implications of this shift are reexamined within the context of the previous literature on quarterly econometric equations explaining the demand for money. The traditional...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477748
This paper reviews the main issues that supply shocks pose for the conduct of monetary policy. A simple version of the Gordon-Phelps model shows that the necessary condition for actual real GNP to be maintained at its equilibrium level in the wake of a supply shock is for the change innominal...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477794
This paper develops the view that monetary policy operates within a set of basic constraints that limit the set of outcomes that it can achieve.These include constraints on aggregate supply behavior that determine how a given path of nominal income growth will be divided between inflation and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477878
This paper reviews the main characteristics of cyclical behavior in the postwar U. S. economy and reviews the arguments for and against an activist stabilization policy to dampen business cycles. Four major behavioral characteristics are identified from summary data on U. S.postwar business...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012477889
Arthur M. Okun's last book, Prices and Quantities, contributes a theory of universal wage and price stickiness, but provides no explanation at all of historical and cross country differences in behavior. The core of this paper provides a new empirical characterization of price and wage changes...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012478264