Initially published estimates of the personal saving rate from 1965 Q3 to 1999 Q2, which averaged 5.3 percent, have been revised up 2.8 percentage points to 8.1 percent, as we document. We show that much of the initial variation in the personal saving rate across time was meaningless noise....

Is it possible to forecast using poorly measured data? According to the permanent income hypothesis, a low personal saving rate should predict rising future income (Campbell, 1987). However, the U.S. personal saving rate is initially poorly measured and has been repeatedly revised upward in...

Over the course of the 20th century, the US economy has moved from rote to creativity, from a mass production workforce to a white-collar workforce whose focus is developing new products for sale. In the process, economic change has been accelerated, so that our educational process and goals are...

The information revolution currently underway has changed the economy in ways that are hard to measure using conventional GDP procedures. The information available to consumers has increased dramatically as a result of the Internet and its applications, and new mobile communication devices have...

This paper addresses two aspects of advertising: its role in supporting entertainment and news, and its role as an investment. The author argues that in both roles advertising's contribution to output is being undermeasured in the national income accounts. In some cases, one unit of nominal...

We empirically study how the underlying riskiness of the pool of home equity line of credit originations is affected over the credit cycle. Drawing from the largest existing database of U.S. home equity lines of credit, we use county-level aggregates of these loans to estimate panel regressions...

This paper sets forth a discussion framework for the information requirements of systemic financial regulation. It specifically describes a potentially large macro-micro database for the U.S. based on an extended version of the Flow of Funds. I argue that such a database would have been of...

The authors empirically study how the underlying riskiness of the pool of home equity line of credit originations is affected over the credit cycle. Drawing from the largest existing database of U.S. home equity lines of credit, they use county-level aggregates of these loans to estimate panel...

The Innovation Union initiative of the European Union focuses on product and process innovation for tangible goods. The authors argue that it is essential to extend the scope of the initiative to include innovation for financial sector products, processes, and regulatory approaches. They make...

This paper supersedes Working Paper 10-22.This paper sets forth a discussion framework for the information requirements of systemic financial regulation. It specifically describes a potential large macro-micro database for the U.S. based on an extended version of the Flow of Funds. I argue that...