What accounts for the apparent preference of firms to finance investment with internal funds? Recent theories stress information problems in capital markets, while older theories emphas ize the transactions costs of external finance. To test these competing hypotheses, the authors estimate the...

This paper examines three questions motivated by previous research on semiconductors and productivity growth: Why did semiconductor prices fall so rapidly in the second half of the 1990s? Why has the rate of price decline slowed since 2001? And to what extent are these price swings associated...

This paper uses data from machinery dealers to estimate the retirement and depreciation patterns for a broad set of conventional machine tools. According to the dealers, the average service life of these machines at the survey date was about thirty years. Service lives were even longer in the...

No. In many vector autoregressions (VARs), monetary policy shocks are identified with the least squares residuals from a regression of the federal funds rate on an assortment of variables. Such regressions appear to be structurally fragile and are at odds with other evidence on the nature of the...

A macroeconomic disequilibrium model of the U.S. economy is constructed with three markets--one each for labor, consumption goods, and investment goods. Demand and supply in each market are obtained from underlying microeconomic theory, with adjustment costs and possible intermarket spillovers...

The authors evaluate the ability of the composite index of leading indicators to predict business cycle turning points. Formal probability-assessment scoring rules are applied to turning-point probabilities generated from the leading index via a Bayesian sequential probability recursion. These...

Policy rules that are consistent with inflation targeting are examined in a small macroeconometric model of the US economy. We compare the properties and outcomes of explicit 'instrument rules' as well as 'targeting rules'. The latter, which imply implicit instrument rules, may be closer to...

One strategy for disinflation prescribes a deliberate path towards low inflation. A contrasting opportunistic approach eschews deliberate action and instead waits for unforeseen shocks to reduce inflation. This paper compares the ability of these two approaches to achieve disinflation--and at...