This Selected Issues paper examines the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the recent acceleration of labor productivity growth in the United States. The analysis reveals that the increase of total factor productivity (TFP) growth is a broad phenomenon that encompasses...

This 2004 Article IV Consultation highlights that following a rather tepid recovery, the United States economy gathered strength in 2003. Supported by continued robust productivity growth, real GDP growth began to exceed the growth rate of potential output around midyear. The recovery broadened...

This Selected Issues paper presents updated IMF staff estimates of potential output growth for the United States, using data through 2001 that incorporates the full cyclical upswing of the 1990s and the subsequent mild recession, as well as taking into account the revisions to the national...

A reduction in the U.S. current account deficit vis-à-vis emerging Asia involves a shift in demand from U.S. to emerging Asia tradable goods and a change in international relative prices. This paper quantifies the required adjustment in the terms of trade and real exchange rates in a...

The notable rebound of U.S. manufacturing activity following the Great Recession has raised the question of whether the sector might be experiencing a renaissance. Using panel regressions, we find that a depreciating real exchange rate, an increasing spread in natural gas prices between the...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country

During the mid- to late 1980s, inflationary pressures were highly concentrated in asset markets in many industrial countries. This paper discusses why this may have occurred and then develops a forward-looking supply and demand model of the real estate market in which equilibrium prices depend...

This paper examines external adjustment in the U.S., Japan and Germany from the perspective of net foreign asset positions. It asks two questions: What are, in the long run, the determinants of net foreign asset equilibrium? and: What are, in the short run, the adjustment mechanisms sustaining...

A recent paper by Baba, Hendry, and Starr presents an error-correction model of the demand for M1 in the United States, which shows a dramatic improvement in both fit and stability over earlier models. This note estimates an alternative model with the same data set and draws two conclusions:...

Previous tests for convexity in the Phillips curve have been biased because researchers have employed filtering techniques for the NAIRU that have been fundamentally inconsistent with the existence of convexity. This paper places linear and nonlinear models of the Phillips curve on an equal...