Not all of that extra output will remain in the United States. If the trade deficit is reduced by three percent of GDP, the rise in exports and decline in imports will reduce output available for U.S. consumption and investment by about 0.3 percent a year

This paper comments on the experience of the U.S. economy in the 1930s, its lessons for managing the current economic downturn, and the relation of U.S. economic conditions to our future national security. Some of the conclusions are: (1) Although the current recession will be long and very...

This paper was prepared for a session of the 2009 American Economic Association meeting devoted to examining the views of American economists about the euro and the European Economic and Monetary Union on the tenth anniversary of the euro. I had written an article in 1992 in the Economist and...

As recently as two years ago there was a widespread consensus among economists that fiscal policy is not useful as a countercyclical instrument. Now governments in Washington and around the world are developing massive fiscal stimulus packages, supported by a wide range of economists in...

The level of productivity doubled in the U.S. nonfarm business sector between 1970 and 2006. Wages, or more accurately total compensation per hour, increased at approximately the same annual rate during that period if nominal compensation is adjusted for inflation in the same way as the nominal...

The large trade and current account deficits of the United States cannot continue indefinitely because doing so would constitute a permanent gift to the U.S. economy. The process that will cause this gift to shrink and that will eventually cause it to reverse is a fall in the dollar. The dollar...

This paper discusses how the effects of taxes on economic behavior are important for revenue estimation, for calculating efficiency effects, and for understanding short-term macroeconomoic consequences. The primary focus is on taxes on labor income but some attention is given to taxes on income...

The explosion in the 21st century of terrorist activities by Islamic radicals in the United States, Europe and Asia requires reforming the institutions for domestic counterterrorism (CT) and new international relations among individual national CT organizations. This paper discusses the...

The housing sector is now (September 2007) at the root of three distinct but related problems: (1) a sharp decline in house prices and the related fall in home building; (2) a subprime mortgage problem that has triggered a substantial widening of all credit spreads and the freezing of much of...

The ageing of the population presents a major fiscal challenge for the countries of Europe. The combination of increased longevity and a reduced birth rate will directly reduce the growth rates of the European economies by slowing the growth of the capital stock and by weakening the productivity...