This paper examines the behavior of 4 major forecasters and the forecast consensus. We employ a new technique of "Fixed Horizon" models. This technique analyzes the sequence of adjustments of a series of forecasts of the same event. We first demonstrate that these forecast adjustment sequences...

This paper considers the question of how one can translate evidence of nonlinearities and threshold effects in growth into policy recommendations. We argue that the current evidence of these effects, while important in terms of scholarly debates, does not readily lend itself to policy...

This paper characterizes the frequency domain properties of feedback control rules in linear systems in order to better understand how different policies affect outcomes frequency by frequency. We are especially concerned in understanding how reductions of variance at some frequencies induce...

This paper provides a general description of the relationship between individual decision problems and aggregate crime regressions. The analysis is designed to elucidate the behavioral and statistical assumptions that are implicit in the use of aggregate crime regressions for both the analysis...

This two-volume original reference work provides a comprehensive overview of development economics and comprises contributions by some of the leading scholars working in the field. Authors are drawn from around the world and write on a wide range of topics.

This paper critically examines the way in which empirical evidence is developed in support of a role for social capital in socioeconomic outcomes. Three leading studies of social capital are reviewed and in each case argued to suffer from various identification problems. A general set of...

This paper contributes to the policy evaluation literature by developing new strategies to study alternative policy rules. We compare optimal rules to simple rules within canonical monetary policy models. In our context, an optimal rule represents the solution to an intertemporal optimization...

This symposium contains three papers that discuss aspects of social capital. Social capital has become a major focus of research in many social sciences. Its increased prominence in economics reflects a general increase in interest in questions that have traditionally been deemed sociological....

This paper develops a general framework for economic policy evaluation. Using ideas from statistical decision theory, it argues that conventional approaches fail to appropriately integrate econometric analysis into evaluation problems. Further, it is argued that evaluation of alternative...