The authors use a stylized model of the economy to analyze how permanent and temporary increases in government expenditure--and the timing of taxation used to finance them--affect aggregate output and other variables that describe the economy.

Low inflation over long periods is the sign of an effective central bank. The authors suggest that a large fraction of the worldwide decline in inflation since the early 1980s results from an international movement toward more independent central banks.

If a central bank adopted a zero inflation target, it would, in practice, occasionally deviate up and down from that rate, and the economy would experience episodes of mild inflation and deflation. Is deflation-a decrease in the level of prices-a cause for concern? Deflation can cause output to...

A discussion of the relationship between money and output, with emphasis on the possibility that changes in output precede changes in money.

Observations that the Phillips curve may be deviating from historical norms are important to policymakers because deviations would imply that more or less output has to be sacrificed to achieve a permanent reduction in long-term inflation. But we argue that recent economic shocks and a shift in...

A look at some of the reasons behind the ascent in health care costs over the last few decades and an analysis of how government policy has both contributed to and tried to rein in these costs.

Is inflation (in the often-quoted words of Milton Friedman) "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon"? Some say no, arguing that inflation is controlled not only by the central bank but also by the fiscal authority. This Commentary authors explore their argument, known as the fiscal theory...

This article traces the consequences of an energy shock on the economy under two different monetary policy rules: (i) a standard Taylor rule, where the Fed responds to inflation and the output gap, and (ii) a Taylor rule with inertia, where the Fed moves slowly to the rate predicted by the...

An analysis of the quantitative effects of agency costs in a real business cycle model, showing that these costs can explain why output growth displays positive autocorrelation at short horizons.