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...

The recent slowdown in the U.S. economy has led to state and local government tax increases and expenditure cuts that have lowered aggregate demand, in contrast to earlier downturns when the sector provided significant automatic stabilizers. Several explanations for this change are examined,...

The paper assesses estimates of term structure models for the United States. To this end, this paper first describes the mathematics underlying two types of term structure models, namely the Nelson-Siegel and Cox, Ingersoll and Ross family of models, and the estimation techniques. It then...

The factors underlying the rise in U.S. income inequality since the mid-1970s are examined. The results suggest that the trend increase in income inequality has not been related to macroeconomic developments, such as income growth or import penetration, but that the income distribution is...