This article compares the 1990-91 recession and the surrounding period of unusually sluggish growth with earlier recessionary episodes. Using a variety of indicators, the author assesses the relative severity of the latest recession and identifies features that distinguish this period from its...

Fiscal policy changes in the 1980s had several possible implications for the long-run performance of the U.S. economy. The authors review the impact of tax reductions on saving, investment, and work effort, the implications of increased federal deficits for national saving and private...

In this speech, made shortly after the stock market crash of October 1987, President Corrigan identifies imbalances in the U.S. and the world economy that contributed to financial market instability. He emphasizes that the reduction of U.S. federal budget deficits and the removal of barriers to...

The authors document the trends in U.S. saving during the 1980s, giving particular attention to those measures of saving that gauge the growth of productive assets. They go on to assess the effects of these developments on capital formation and the nation's long-term economic potential.

For at least the next two years, the U.S. economy will grow more slowly than it has on average since World War II. This is the forecast of a Bayesian vector autoregression model developed and used by researchers at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. The model's previous forecast—of a very...

This paper reports an optimistic forecast of U.S. output and inflation trends in 1990_91. Generated by a Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR) model of the U.S. economy using data available on November 30, 1989, the forecast is more optimistic than a consensus forecast. The key to the model's...

In the last forty years, inflation in the service sector has consistently exceeded inflation in the rest of the economy. This article investigates whether the observed difference in inflation rates reflects upward bias in the measurement of service prices.