This study investigates, using data from 1960 to 1998, whether the nature of political regimes can help explain cross-national and intertemporal variations in the cost of disinflationary policies, as measured by the sacrifice ratio. We show that, "ceteris paribus", right-wing governments have...

This paper develops and empirically supports, using 3 and 6 month interest rates, a theory that political risk can explain the shifting term premia found in U.S. data. We find that incorporating these political regime shifts yield results that support the expectations hypothesis.

Many economists helped to lay the groundwork for the Federal Reserve. Some did important work analyzing the problems of the National Bank System and arguing for formation of a central bank in economics journals. At least as importantly, if not more so, some economists took an active role in the...

Inflation stationarity has important theoretical and policy implications, yet most of the literature has focused on low inflation countries. This article investigates inflation stationarity in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Bolivia during a hyperinflationary period from 1980 to 2004. We...

Michael Lewis’ influential book <italic>Moneyball</italic> (2003) discusses several sources of inefficiency in the Major League Baseball (MLB) labour market; one of these being the failure of baseball scouts to place a draft premium on college players. We test this implication of the <italic>Moneyball</italic> thesis -- the...

This essay argues that Knut Wicksell's trade cycle theory was an older version of real business cycle theory. Wicksell and modern real business cycle theorists both view technology shocks as the initial cause of business cycles. They also both explain money-income correlations as examples of...