Policymakers look to the output gap as a measure of how the economy is performing. However, different methods of computing the output gap can lead to vastly different results, rendering it a potentially poor guide.

After the recession of 2007-09, the Beveridge curve seemed to shift significantly outward as the job-vacancy rate increased with no corresponding decrease in the unemployment rate. A new time-varying analysis of the Beveridge curve from the early 1950s through 2011 could lend support to the idea...

Long-term unemployment rose dramatically during the recent recession and remains elevated. A primary cause may be the fact that more workers with inherently low job finding rates have become unemployed. This would suggest that the natural rate of unemployment has increased, and that additional...

The "unemployment gap" is an important factor in monetary policy decisions. But the size of the gap depends on the level of natural rate of unemployment, which is inherently unobservable. The uncertainty surrounding estimates of the natural rate, and the costs of mismeasuring it, may recommend a...

In recent years, large positive and negative balances have arisen in TARGET2, the interbank settlement and payments system of the Eurozone. These balances show that the Deutsche Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany, has become a large net creditor to the European Central Bank (ECB)....

During the current recovery, policymakers have debated whether slow wage growth indicates labor market "slack" that is not adequately reflected in the unemployment rate alone. The relationship—or lack thereof—between the unemployment rate and wage growth has challenged macroeconomists for...

Concerns about fiscal imbalances in Europe and the United States have led to intense debates about whether governments should dramatically cut spending or increase taxes to reduce government debt — a course of action often called fiscal "austerity." But is austerity likely to hurt economic...