This paper argues that individuals may rationally weight price increases for food and energy products differently from their expenditure shares when forming expectations about price inflation. We develop a simple dynamic model of the economy with gradual price adjustment in the "core" (non-food,...

This paper considers whether the Phillips curve can explain the recent behavior of inflation in the United States. Standard formulations of the model predict that the ongoing large shortfall in economic activity relative to full employment should have led to deflation over the past several...

This paper considers whether the Phillips curve can explain the recent behavior of inflation in the United States. Standard formulations of the model predict that the ongoing large shortfall in economic activity relative to full employment should have led to deflation over the past several...

We show that the winning record of a university’s football team is positively (and statistically significant) related to the number of the applications for admittance received by that university. Our parameter estimates indicate that an increase in winning percentage from .500 to .750 tends to...

This paper shows that the debt burden of households, as measured by the debt service to income ratio, is helpful in forecasting the future growth of consumer spending. Not only is the debt-service ratio a statistically significant predictor of future spending growth, it also explains about as...