There is, in informal discussions and even in some academic writings, a tendency to treat U.S. monetary history as divided between a gold standard past and a fiat dollar present. In truth, the legal meaning of a "standard" U.S. dollar has been contested, often hotly, throughout U.S. history, and...

Today, banks in the U.S. hold almost $20 trillion in total financial assets; ten times that held by all credit unions, but less than three times that held by the Federal Reserve. The average annual growth of financial asset holdings of credit unions (12%) has generally exceeded the average...

The following analysis presents conditions for characterizing unsustainable public borrowing. These conditions describe a “critical level” of public debt beyond which increases in taxes (current or future) are required to meet debt service obligations. The discussion is written for a general...

In this paper we analyze changes in the Federal Reserve behavior and objectives since the1960s justified by potentially evolving beliefs—through a real-time learning process—aboutthe structure of the economy and shifts in policymakers' preferences in the late 1970s. In addition, we allow for...

About half of professional forecasters report that they use the natural rate of unemployment (u*) to forecast. I show that forecasters' reported use of and estimates of u* are informative about their expectations-formation process, including their use of a Phillips curve. Those who report not...

Since the 2001 recession, average core inflation has been below the Federal Reserve's 2% target. This deflationary bias is a predictable consequence of a low nominal interest rates environment. When monetary policy faces the risk of encountering the zero lower bound, in.ation tends to remain...

We develop and estimate a general equilibrium model in which monetary policy can deviate from active in.ation stabilization and agents face uncertainty about the nature of these deviations. When observing a deviation, agents conduct Bayesian learning to infer its likely duration. Under...

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis monthly journal of record presents summary estimates and analyses of U.S. economic activity. It includes articles about the national, regional, and international economic accounts and related topics. It also presents the latest estimates of the national...

We reconsider the role of financial intermediaries in monetary economics. We explore the hypothesis that financial intermediaries drive the business cycle by way of their role in determining the price of risk. In this framework, balance sheet quantities emerge as a key indicator of risk appetite...

In this review essay of Medema's and Waterman's collection of some of Samuelson's writings in the history of economics, the author argues that Samuelson's claim to have written “Whig History” is spurious. Moreover the author argues that Samuelson's own writings on modern economics are,...