We distinguish between three different strategies for estimating forecasting equations with real-time data and argue that the most popular approach should generally be avoided. The point is illustrated with a model that uses current-quarter monthly industrial production, employment, and retail...

John Taylor and David Romer champion an approach to teaching undergraduate macroeconomics that dispenses with the LM half of the IS-LM model and replaces it with a rule for setting the interest rate as a function of inflation and the output gap - i.e., a Taylor rule. But the IS curve is...

When economists are concerned that the economy may be about to change direction, one of the indicators to which they give special scrutiny is the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), released monthly by the Institute for Supply Management. This article discusses the construction and...

In this article Evan Koenig looks at measures of the Federal Reserve’s policy stance and discusses why short-term interest rates will almost certainly have to increase at some point. The article also examines the historical relationship between Federal Reserve policy, inflation and resource...

In Part 1 of this two-part series, Evan Koenig explains why some economists are skeptical that staggered price adjustment can account for monetary policy's sustained effects on aggregate economic activity. In Part 2, Koenig looks at labor-market imperfections as a possible source of persistence....

During the past two decades, financial innovations have proceeded at a rapid pace. These innovations have altered the liquidity of some assets relative to that of others. As a result, traditional measures of the money supply may have become less reliable as measures of household liquidity. Even...

The Internal Revenue Service remains unpopular, the U.S. savings rate remains low, and pressure to efficiently raise significant new tax revenues seems certain to grow once the baby boom generation reaches retirement age. Consequently, it is likely that alternatives to the current income tax...