The real interest rate plays a central role in many important financial and macroeconomic models, including the consumption-based asset pricing model, neoclassical growth model, and models of the monetary transmission mechanism. We selectively survey the empirical literature that examines the...

We analyze comovements in four measures of budget surpluses for 18 OECD countries for 1980-2008 with a dynamic latent factor model. The world factor in national budget surpluses declines substantially in the 1980s, rises throughout much of the 1990s to a peak in 2000, before declining again in...

It is a robust finding that technical trading rules applied to foreign exchange markets have earned substantial excess returns over long periods of time. However, the approach to risk adjustment has typically been rather cursory, and has tended to focus on the CAPM. We examine the returns to a...

In contrast with many people’s expectations, the Fed’s injection of $3.5 trillion into the economy caused no significant inflation or increases in the price level. There are many possible explanations in the mainstream; an alternative is a liquidity trap.

A look at food prices in the two countries helps to explain the increasing correlation in their inflation patterns. One reason why their food prices are moving together is the increased trade between the countries.