This study constructs new hedonic price indexes for electronic computers covering the period 1951-84. Regressions are estimated for four data sets, two used in previous studies by G. Chow and E. Dulberger, and two new data sets used for the first time in this study. Coverage is limited to...

This paper rejects the proposition that there is only a single interesting question to ask about the decade of the 1930s. It is concerned not only with the role of money in the 1929-33 contraction but also with the relative role of monetary and nonmonetary factors in the recession of 1937-38 and...

This paper traces the evolution of macroeconomic events and ideas from the late 1940s to the present day. After a brief introduction that highlights the unique features of the main macroeconomic variables as compared to their behavior before 1947, the paper turns to an analysis of four main...

The partial-adjustment approach to the specification of the short-run demand for money has dominated the literature for more than a decade. There are three basic problems with this approach. First, the same lag structure is imposed on all variables, and each independent variable enters only as a...

This paper shows how misleading is the facile contrast of Europe following a path of high productivity growth, high unemployment, and relatively greater income equality, in contrast to the opposite path being pursued by the United States. While structural shocks may initially create a positive...

This is a comprehensive study of measurement and substantive issues that arise in determining the rate of multi factor productivity (MFP) growth in the transportation industry over the postwar period, 1948-87. Official data on output and employment are provided by two government agencies and...

This paper demonstrates that the commonly used Expectational Phillips Curve (EPC) framework cannot explain the last eighty-seven years of aggregate price behavior in the United States. The EPC explanation, which in its most general form relates price change to expected inflation and the level of...

During the four years 1995-99 U. S. productivity growth experienced a strong revival and achieved growth rates exceeding that of the golden age' of 1913-72. Accordingly many observers have declared the New Economy' (the Internet and the accompanying acceleration of technical change in computers...

This paper estimates the NAIRU (standing for the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment) as a parameter that varies over time. The NAIRU is the unemployment rate that is consistent with a constant rate of inflation. Its value is determined in an econometric model in which the inflation...

Starting from the same level of productivity and per-capita income as the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, Europe fell behind steadily to a level of barely half in 1950, and then began a rapid catch-up. While Europe's level of productivity has almost converged, its income per person...