In this paper we assemble a measure of international relative prices to gauge the average amount by which prices in China and the USA differ from the prices of their trading partners. Our estimated weighted average of relative prices for China and the USA are the first to use the significantly...

A standard result from static economic theory is that a monopolist with zero cost will maximize profits by charging the price at which the demand has unit elasticity. Yet, the demand for petroleum, as seen by consumers, is price inelastic, and empirical estimates of the price elasticity for...

I use the automated search algorithm to address practical issues that arise in estimating income and price elasticities for U.S. trade in services: specification of dynamics, specification of the search strategy, simultaneity biases, and aggregation biases. Specifically, starting from a general,...

This paper offers a framework for judging when the discrepancy embodied in current account forecasts is large. The first step in implementing this framework involves developing an econometric model explaining the components of the aggregate discrepancy, estimating the associated parameters, and...

This paper proposes a tripartite framework of design, evaluation, and post-evaluation analysis for generating and interpreting economic forecasts. This framework?s value is illustrated by re-examining mean square forecast errors from dynamic models and nonlinearity biases from empirical...

During the 1990s, many OECD countries had declining rates of inflation while their unemployment rates were also falling, something that on the surface seemed at odds with the Phillips curve relationship between inflation and unemployment. For the USA, these seemingly contradictory developments...

This paper estimates income and price elasticities for bilateral world trade. In addition to testing the properties of the error terms, the dynamic specification, and the assumption of parameter constancy, the analysis presents the first application of the Bank Spectrum estimator to bilateral...