The paper analyzes the question why the U.S. economy in the 2000:4-2004:3 period was sluggish in light of the large expansionary fiscal and monetary policies that took place. The answer does not appear to be that there were large structural changes in the economy or systematic bad shocks. This...

This paper examines monetary policy from an optimal control perspective. Three loss functions are minimized for each of three models, and the results are compared. The three loss functions target nominal growth, real growth, and inflation, respectively. The three models are a small structural...

This paper uses a multicountry econometric model to estimate what the inflation costs would have been if macropolicies had reduced European unemployment in the 1982:1-1990:4 period. A "non-NAIRU" framework is proposed for thinking about these costs.

This paper analyzes Branch Rickey's 1954 equation in a regression context. The results for 1934--1953 are consistent with Rickey's conclusions, and the equation holds up well when extended 51 years. Two of Rickey's main points were that on base percentage dominates batting average and that...

Age effects in baseball are estimated in this paper using a nonlinear fixed-effects regression. The sample consists of all players who have played 10 or more "full-time" years in the major leagues between 1921 and 2004. Quadratic improvement is assumed up to a peak-performance age, which is...

Three vote-share equations are estimated and analyzed in this paper, one for presidential elections, one for on-term House elections, and one for mid-term House elections. The sample period is 1916-2006. Considering the three equations together allows one to test whether the same economic...