Commodity and asset prices have a well-documented effect on economic growth, manifested through various channels. At the same time, the business cycle influences the commodity and asset prices. Whereas empirical evidence on the effect of commodity and asset prices on the long-run economic growth...

The US Great Depression was preceded by almost a decade of credit growth. This review paper suggests that the 1920s credit boom went through two phases: one, up to around 1927, when credit grew in concert with money; another one, from around 1928 to 1929, when credit grew faster than money....

Price indices for periods before the Second World War place more weight on less-processed products than do their post-war counterparts, to an extent that exaggerates the change over time in the composition of aggregate output. Prices of less-processed products are especially procyclical in...

This paper presents insights on U.S. business cycle volatility since 1867 de- rived from diffusion indices. We employ a Bayesian dynamic factor model to obtain aggregate and sectoral economic activity indices. We find a remarkable increase in volatility across World War I, which is reversed...

L’application de l’analyse spectrale au domaine cliométrique a été jusqu’à présente restreinte. Elle est employée ici pour déterminer la périodicité des séries agrégées de brevets de la France, de l’Allemagne, de la Grande-Bretagne et des Etats-Unis. Après avoir rappelé la...

This paper presents insights on U.S. business cycle volatility since 1867 de- rived from diffusion indices. We employ a Bayesian dynamic factor model to obtain aggregate and sectoral economic activity indices. We find a remarkable increase in volatility across World War I, which is reversed...

This paper reexamines U.S. business cycle volatility since 1867. We employ dynamic factor analysis as an alternative to reconstructed national accounts. We find a remarkable volatility increase across World War I, which is reversed after World War II. While we can generate evidence of postwar...

Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz published A Monetary History of the United States: 1867 to 1960 with Princeton University Press in 1963, to critical acclaim. Since then the book's reputation has grown and it clearly has become one of the most influential volumes in economics in the...

This article provides an interpretative overview of the papers in this special issue of JIMF devoted to international aspects of the 2007–2009 financial crisis. It then goes on to provide additional empirical evidence of two sorts. The first documents the difference between the monetary...

Using new quarterly U.S. data for the past 120 years, I show that sudden reversals in equity and credit market sentiment approximated by several measures of corporate securities issuance are highly predictive of banking crises and recessions. Deviations in equity issuance from historical...