The post-World War II reconstruction of Western Europe was one of the greatest economic policy and foreign policy successes of this century. "Folk wisdom" assigns a major role in successful reconstruction to the Marshall Plan: the program that transferred some $13 billion to Europe in the years...

We review and analyze the monetary and financial policies of the Clinton administration with a focus on the strong dollar policy, the Mexican rescue, the response to the Asian crisis, and the debate over reform of the international financial architecture. While we consider the role of ideas,...

This paper uses John Taylor's model of overlapping contracts to show that increased wage and price flexibility can easily be destabilizing because of the Mundell effect. While lower prices increase output, the expectation of falling prices decreases output. Simulations based on realistic...