The scale of the recent collapse in asset values and the magnitude of the recession suggest that activities connected to the increase in values over the 2002-07 period--notably, expansion of the financial markets, homebuilding, and real estate--were overstated. If this is true, aggregate U.S....

This paper provides a review of the concept of core inflation and evaluates the performance of several proposed measures. We first consider the rationale of a central bank in setting its inflation goal in terms of a selected rate of consumer price growth and the use of a core inflation measure...

Economists, business analysts, and policymakers have all focused considerable attention on U.S. productivity growth in recent years. This paper presents a broad overview of productivity--both labor and total factor--and discusses why it is such an important topic. We begin with the official U.S....