Aggregation in the presence of data processing lags distorts the information content of data, violating orthogonality restrictions that hold at the individual level. Though the phenomenon is general, it is illustrated here for the life cycle-permanent model. Cross-section and pooled-panel data...

The paper studies endogenous world balanced growth equilibria in which national learning productivity differentials govern relative per capita products. Learning productivities depend on the national share of world specialized-goods production, national and world scale, and familiarity with the...

Long-term economic development involves four fundamental processes: the exploitation of increasing returns to specialization, the transition from household to market production, knowledge and human capital accumulation, and industrialization. In this paper, we integrate these processes into a...

The evolution and structure of the payments system is explained by efficiency gains from substituting claims on particular institutions for commodity money. Information-intensive lending and payments services have been provided jointly by the same set of institutions, i.e., banks, because...

This paper is intended to be an analysis of discount window borrowing as it relates to more general issues of monetary control. The topic deserves a new look because of the central role of discount window borrowing under the post-October 6, 1979 "reserve targeting" operating strategy.

Reasoning within the New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS) we previously recommended that price stability should be the primary objective of monetary policy. We called this a neutral policy because it keeps output at its potential, defined as the outcome of an imperfectly competitive real business...

Macroeconomics is moving toward a New Neoclassical Synthesis, which like the synthesis of the 1960s melds Classical with Keynesian ideas. This paper describes the key features of the new synthesis and its implications for the role of monetary policy. We find that the New Neoclassical Synthesis...

The paper explores the relationship between financial stability, deflation, and monetary policy. A discussion of narrow liquidity, broad liquidity, market liquidity, and financial distress provides the foundation for the analysis. There are two preliminary conclusions. Equity prices are a...

The paper contains a theoretical discussion of the role of secrecy in the implementation of monetary policy. It documents the Federal Reserve's defense of secrecy as argued in a recent Freedom of Information Act suit. The Federal Reserve's arguments are evaluated on the basis of economic theory....

Central bank or International Monetary Fund lending should be regarded as a line of credit, analogous to private line-of-credit products. Contractual provisions in private line-of-credit arrangements are designed to control managerial moral hazard and provide a means for profit-maximizing...