Brookings Papers on Economic Activity

Past BPEA Editions

All BPEA articles, papers, reports and commentary dating back to the first edition (published in 1970) are offered here as free downloads in PDF format. When available, the authors' data and programs are also offered for download. Also available here are The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: Microeconomics, published from 1989 to 1998. Papers in these journals covered issues of economic performance that confronted public policymakers and executives in the private sector.

Fall 2012
The papers at the conference, like those at other recent meetings of the Panel, focused on issues raised by the run-up to the Great Recession, the recession itself, and the slow recovery. Download the editors' summary.

Spring 2012
The papers in this volume cover the severity of future recessions; the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve’s new communication tools in moving markets; how fiscal stimulus can pay for itself in spurring economic growth; household spending by heavily indebted households in the wake of the housing bust; threats to the future stability of the Eurozone; and the connection between Islam and democracy in the Arab world.

Fall 2011
The first three papers focus on the labor market. The first demonstrates that unemployment is terribly costly, much more so than conventional models imply. The second undertakes a thorough analysis of small businesses and of their owners' motivations, showing that, contrary to conventional wisdom, these businesses do not drive either employment growth or innovation. The third finds that the extensions in the duration of unemployment insurance benefits enacted in response to the recent recession are contributing only a very small amount to unemployment. The next two papers study monetary policy. The fourth paper analyzes the various channels through which quantitative easing affects interest rates. The fifth paper discusses practical monetary policy, focusing on the recent experiences of the United States and Sweden.

This volume also marks an innovation in the Brookings Papers, in which the authors of two previous studies revisit their earlier conclusions in light of newly available data. Thus, the sixth paper returns to an earlier study of the performance of the labor market during the Great Recession, and the seventh paper reexamines the case for giving greater attention to an alternative way of measuring GDP. Both papers confirm and extend the findings of the earlier ones.

Spring 2011
The research in this volume is directly relevant to the economy’s troubles. The first two papers study how people have fared in the recession and its aftermath. The first examines job search and the well-being of the unemployed, and the second studies the financial vulnerability of households and how they cope with emergency spending needs. The remaining four papers contribute to ongoing macroeconomic debates. The third paper analyzes a historical episode of quantitative easing, to better understand how the recent unconventional monetary policy might influence the economy. The fourth paper reexamines the fundamental question of how a government ought to use monetary and fiscal policy to respond to recessions. The fifth paper asks why unemployment rose so much less in Germany during the recession than it did in the United States and elsewhere, and the sixth paper analyzes the behavior of inflation over the past few years in light of competing views of the relationship between inflation and unemployment.

Fall 2010
Five of the papers in this volume study aspects of the causes and consequences of the Great Recession. These papers examine the effects of the business cycle on the incomes of the very richest Americans; welfare, welfare reform, and poverty during recessions; the failure of modern macroeconomic models to adequately forecast economic conditions; the role of shadow banking in the financial crisis and the appropriate regulatory response; and expenditures by state and local governments over the business cycle. The remaining paper studies the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act, a far-reaching education reform that will shape the skills of the labor force for years to come.

Spring 2010
Three of the papers in this volume assess macroeconomic developments in light of these remarkable events, examining the downturn in the U.S. labor market, the vulnerability of the financial system, and the spread of the crisis to emerging market countries. A fourth paper, which addresses how best to measure GDP, is also highly relevant, showing that an alternative to the most commonly used measure would have yielded a clearer early warning of the size and scope of the U.S. downturn. The two remaining papers compile interesting new data that speak to ongoing longer-term debates about the balance between work and family and about health care reform.

Fall 2009
Papers in this edition considered the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates, consumer financial regulation, unconventional monetary policy, the macroeconomic consequences of fiscal stimulus, and monetary and fiscal policy in the Great Depression.

Spring 2009
Three of the papers in this volume address the role of various factors in the initial downturn and the ensuing crisis, including the response of policymakers, the behavior of bond markets, and the role played by the oil market. The two remaining papers examine the impact of tax cuts on government spending, and the role of corruption in undermining popular support for market-oriented policies.

Fall 2008
Several of the conference papers examine aspects of the current financial crisis: the relationships among recent global financial imbalances, mortgage lending, and volatile commodity prices; the errors made by lenders in judging subprime mortgages and instruments derived from them to have fairly low credit risk; the effect of mortgage foreclosures on the dynamics of home prices; the impact of mortgage credit losses on the supply of credit; and the implications for financial regulation of spillovers from failing financial institutions. The remaining papers deal with the role of the unofficial economy in economic development, and the effect of an undervalued currency on economic growth in developing countries.

Spring 2008
Papers in this edition encompass a range of topics central to macroeconomics and economic policy: the relationship between economic growth and people’s subjective well-being; the effect of international trade on wages; the appropriate role of policies designed to strengthen local economies; macroeconomic crises and asset pricing; the impact of political constraints on the success of economic policy reform; and the behavior of financial markets during the approach of world wars.

Fall 2007
For the conference papers we asked leading scholars in a number of fields within macroeconomics to summarize the evolution and state of knowledge in their areas or to highlight new perspectives and intellectual challenges. The ten papers in this issue respond admirably to this request, offering provocative views about business cycle dynamics, inflation and unemployment, monetary and fiscal policy, financial markets, international capital flows, earnings inequality, time allocation, and the effect of energy shocks.

Spring 2007
The five papers in this issue span a range of domestic and global issues of current importance. The first paper uses risk analysis to assess the large foreign reserves holdings of emerging market countries. The second paper models the role of information technology in the rapid productivity growth of the past decade. The third paper examines the relation between foreign capital inflows and growth among nonindustrialized economies. The fourth paper estimates the effects of dividends on consumption and the implied effects of the 2003 dividend tax cuts. The final paper looks for explanations for the failure of long-term rates to respond as expected to the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening of recent years.

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Report

Fall 2006
All three papers in this issue explore various aspects of the Chinese economy. Specifically this edition looks at: the recent productivity growth in China and the prospects for China’s economic catch-up with the international productivity frontier; estimating the current rates of return on investment in China to gauge whether the country’s high investment rate is sustainable; and the state of China’s banks and the prospects for successful banking reform.

Spring 2006
The first paper takes a new approach to assessing the boom in home prices, using a model that parallels the one commonly used to value assets such as stocks. The second analyzes labor force participation and its determinants and projects future labor force growth. The third examines changes in wealth by age group and relates them to changes in law and the economy and to demographic characteristics. The fourth examines the present defined-benefits pension system and considers how to reform its regulation and insurance by the federal government.

2005 No. 2
Papers in this edition examine some possible drawbacks to greater transparency by central banks, analyze the change in the income distribution that has accompanied the productivity surge of the past decade, study how workers respond to information about risk in their retirement accounts, look at the long-run interactions between energy needs and the environment, and question the widespread preference for the payroll data over the household data as a measure of monthly employment gains.

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Report

2005 No. 1
The first paper examines some possible drawbacks to greater transparency by central banks. The second analyzes the change in the income distribution that has accompanied the productivity surge of the past decade. The third studies how workers respond to information about risk in their retirement accounts. The fourth looks at the long-run interactions between energy needs and the environment. The issue concludes with a report that questions the widespread preference for the payroll data over the household data as a measure of monthly employment gains.

2004 No. 2
The first paper evaluates unconventional measures available to monetary policymakers for stimulating the economy when interest rates are already near zero, a situation that may arise with price stability or negative inflation. The second paper presents empirical evidence on the effects of taxes, federal spending, and deficits on national saving, interest rates, and growth. The third paper explores the impacts on U.S. employment in recent years from conventional foreign trade in goods and from the rise in offshoring of service jobs. The fourth paper examines the effect of tax changes, such as those passed since 2000, on business capital formation.

2004 No. 1
The first paper analyzes the experience of single mothers since the welfare reforms of the mid-1990s. The second paper offers a diagnosis of the persistence of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and outlines a long-run program of assistance to promote sustained development. The third paper models the relationship between long-run demographic swings and long-run returns to equities. The fourth paper reports on a survey of Americans’ opinions on, and knowledge about, economic policy issues and assesses how self-interest, political ideology, and other factors relate to those opinions.

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Report

2003 No. 2
The first paper examines the Mexican economy since Mexico liberalized its financial markets and concludes that its disappointing performance is due, in important part, to inadequate domestic reforms. The second paper takes a fresh look at understanding the factors behind economic growth over the past forty years, using the experience of eighty-four countries at various stages of development. The third paper looks at how the U.S. productivity surge since the mid-1990s affects our understanding of productivity trends and cycles, and how this might inform future projections. The fourth paper looks for evidence of a bubble in current housing prices.

2003 No. 1
The first paper explores why some emerging market economies are prone to fall into financial crisis at levels of external indebtedness that more advanced economies seem able to manage. The second paper reviews the current U.S. fiscal situation against the historical record. The third paper offers a theoretical analysis of optimal monetary policy in the face of a liquidity trap, with a focus on the importance of expectations. The fourth paper discusses a new methodological approach to economic policymaking under uncertainty, with particular attention to uncertainty about economic models. The concluding report analyzes whether new rules for corporate pension accounting promulgated in the 1980s misled investors into overvaluing the stocks of firms with pension plans during the 1990s market boom.

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Report

2002 No. 2
The first paper reviews the process and methods of inflation and output forecasting at four central banks and proposes strategies for improving the usefulness of their formal economic models for policymaking. The second paper analyzes the implications for monetary policymaking of uncertainty about the levels of the natural rates of unemployment and interest. The third paper examines reasons for the recent rise in current account deficits in the lower-income countries of Europe and the role of economic integration in breaking the link between domestic saving and domestic investment. The fourth paper applies a new decomposition of productivity growth to a new database of income-side output to examine the recent speedup in U.S. productivity growth and the contribution made by new economy industries.

2002 No. 1
The first paper investigates the origins and features of the economic boom in Ireland during the 1990s, including the country’s rapid employment growth and apparent productivity miracle. The second paper analyzes changes in male unemployment and labor force participation in the United States over the last four decades. The third paper studies the interaction of firms’ investments in information technology with their investments in intangible assets such as organizational structure, and the effect of these joint investments on firms’ market value. A report in this issue assesses the recent U.S. recession and its ongoing recovery, reevaluates the current system for identifying recessions, and considers the outlook for corporate profits and equities markets. The issue concludes with a symposium on new international arrangements for distressed sovereign debtors.

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Reports

Symposium on New Bankruptcy Arrangements for Sovereign Debt

Discussion Papers

2001 No. 2
The first paper revisits the economy of the former East Germany ten years after reunification, seeking to explain why its convergence toward western German economic performance has stalled. The second paper reviews macroeconomic policymaking in Japan to determine whether the stagnant Japanese economy has responded to policy stimulus as conventional models would predict. The third paper tests alternative explanations of the greater generosity of social welfare systems in Europe than in the United States. And the concluding paper attempts to reconcile the observed high return on equities with reasonable levels of risk aversion on the part of individuals.

2001 No. 1
The first paper examines the causes of and international response to the Russian financial crisis of 1998 and. The second paper studies the effect of interstate wage differences on the location decisions of immigrants and estimates the resulting gains in macroeconomic efficiency. The first report analyzes whether the decreased frequency of recessions in the past two decades can be attributed to a secular decline in the variability of quarter-to-quarter changes in output. The second report examines the usefulness of the Index of Consumer Sentiment as a tool for forecasting recessions. The issue concludes with a symposium of three papers on the sustainability of the recent large current account deficits in the U.S. balance of payments.

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Symposium on the U.S. Current Account

2000 No. 2
The first paper analyzes the effects on national saving of alternative proposals for Social Security reform. The second paper proposes that the sharp rise in the stock market in recent years reflects increases in intangible and unobserved “e-capital.” The third paper reviews recent developments in real estate markets and assesses the risk of a crisis in the sector. The next three papers address various implications of the unexpected emergence of federal budget surpluses and the consequences of sharply declining government debt. Finally, the seventh paper in this issue examines to what extent official corruption inhibits foreign direct investment in developing countries.

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Reports

2000 No. 1
The first paper presents and tests a new model of inflation that rejects the conventional theory of a natural rate of unemployment. The second paper examines “new economy” explanations for the recent spectacular rise in stock prices. The third paper applies growth accounting methods to recently revised official U.S. productivity data to analyze the sources of the recent surge in productivity. The fourth paper investigates the possibility of a link between share prices and unemployment across a sample of industrial countries whose unemployment rates diverged during the 1990s.

1999 No. 2
The first paper uses a number of historical tax reforms to examine the response of taxable income to tax rates. The second paper asks whether today’s working households are saving enough for retirement. The third paper argues that Europe’s persistently high unemployment primarily reflects a rise in the noninflationary unemployment rate caused by prolonged tight monetary policy. The fourth paper reviews the nineteenth-century history of international financial crises. The issue concludes with a report on the first months of the European Monetary Union.

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Report

1999 No. 1
The first paper undertakes an eclectic analysis of trends and developments in the U.S. labor market. The second paper inquires whether economists and policymakers should reconsider their endorsement of capital account liberalization. The first report examines what contribution foreign capital inflows make to developing economies. The second report provides some new perspectives on the supposedly anemic U.S. saving rate. The concluding report asks whether a bout of deflation may now be in our future.

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Reports

1998: Microeconomics
Three of the papers study the economic and legal impacts of liability laws. The other four papers consider a broad range of economic and policy issues.

1998 No. 2
The first paper analyzes the East Asian currency crisis, examining its predictability and causes, and evaluating the policy responses that were made. The second provides a modern version of the Keynesian liquidity trap as an explanation of Japan's deepening recession and offers an unorthodox policy prescription: promised inflation. The third paper examines the roles played by demographics and tropical geography in perpetuating poverty in Africa. The first report reviews the performance of conventional models of inflation during the recent period of outstanding macroeconomic performance in the U.S. economy. And the concluding report examines Japan's current banking problem, tracing its origins to the postwar evolution of the Japanese economic and financial systems.

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Reports

1998 No. 1
The first paper analyses the causes and the treatment of the recent financial crisis in East Asia, focusing in particular on the International Monetary Fund's interventions, in order to develop guidelines for new international workout arrangements that would prevent or swiftly resolve future financial crises. The second presents a new model of saving over the life cycle and uses it to examine the effect of instruments that commit savers, such as defined contribution pension plans with penalties for early withdrawal. The third paper challenges the notion that deficit-reducing reforms are politically costly, and relates the "success" of such programs to the composition of the fiscal changes. Using household survey data, the first report depicts patterns of wealth holding and wealth accumulation among American families since the mid- 1980s, analyzing the roles of different forms of saving in the accumulation of wealth. The concluding report examines the effects of hours reductions on employment and wages, and considers the motivation behind pressure for work-sharing arrangements in Germany.

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Reports

1997: Microeconomics
The five papers in this volume address economic and policy issues in telecommunications, labor turnover, health care, and antitrust law.

1997 No. 2
The first paper examines the economic implications of alternative proposals for reforming the U.S. social security system. The second analyzes the large increases in both unemployment rates and capital shares in continental Europe. The third paper models how government policies have given rise to large unofficial sectors in some transition economies of central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. And the fourth assesses the gains and costs likely to flow from European monetary union.

1997 No. 1
In light of the great increase in U.S. immigration and trade since the 1960, the first paper estimates the impacts of these two factors on the labor market outcomes of U.S. natives. The second paper examines the effects of systematic monetary policy on the economy, disentangling these effects from the effects of other shocks, such as OPEC oil price increases. The third considers public resistance to the indexation of long-term contracts, using survey data from the United States and from Turkey-a country with high and variable inflation. The fourth examines to what extent and by what means families are able to smooth year-to-year variation in the earnings of the household head. The fifth paper addresses recent criticisms of the procedures used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in accounting for quality change in the Consumer Price Index. And the sixth assesses the performance and prospects of Brazil's stabilization and economic reform under the Real Plan.

1996: Microeconomics
The papers address economic and policy issues in five different industries. Bresnahan and Greenstein examine the migration of corporate computer users from massive mainframes to distributed computing platforms. Berndt, Cockburn, and Griliches explore the measurement of drug prices, in particular the prices of drugs used to treat depression. The other papers examine similar industry-level issues. Steven A. Morrison and Clifford Winston identify the causes and consequences of airline fare wars in the United States. Matthew White identifies factors that are likely to shape the deregulated markets for electricity generation. Frank Wolak projects how future changes in local and long-distance telephone call rates will affect consumer welfare.

1996 No. 2
The first paper employs advanced statistical technique to analyze the importance of monetary policy and the mechanisms by which it affects the economy. The second demonstrates the importance of variations in the workweek of capital in the business cycle. These papers are followed by a symposium on the economies of the Pacific Rim. The first symposium paper revisits the debate on the relative importance of total factor productivity and capital accumulation in explaining rapid economic growth in East Asia. The second considers Japan's experience, both with successful growth and, ultimately, with its financial bubble and recent stagnation. The third examines China's economic development over the past two decades and its prospects for the future. Three extended comments offer observations about past and prospective growth in the region and elsewhere.

Articles

Symposium on the Economies of the Pacific Rim

Observations

1996 No. 1
The first article rejects the concept of a natural unemployment rate by examining the effects of downward wage rigidity, and calls into question policies that would target zero inflation. The second considers the Federal Reserve's experience with money targets and the lessons for rules versus discretion and appropriate targets for U.S. monetary policymaking. The third article examines the Tequila effect of the December 1994 Mexican peso crisis in a sample of developing countries and analyzes the factors that make a country vulnerable to financial crisis. The fourth reviews the evidence from the previously communist-controlled countries of central Europe and the former Soviet Union to show that radical programs of liberalization and price stabilization have been more successful than gradual reforms, in both economic and political terms. And the final article traces the postwar decline in national saving to a redistribution of resources from younger to older generations and a significant increase in the consumption propensities of the elderly.

1995: Microeconomics
The papers address economic and policy issues in five different industries. Bresnahan and Greenstein examine the migration of corporate computer users from massive mainframes to distributed computing platforms. Berndt, Cockburn, and Griliches explore the measurement of drug prices, in particular the prices of drugs used to treat depression. The other papers examine similar industry-level issues. Steven A. Morrison and Clifford Winston identify the causes and consequences of airline fare wars in the United States. Matthew White identifies factors that are likely to shape the deregulated markets for electricity generation. Frank Wolak projects how future changes in local and long-distance telephone call rates will affect consumer welfare.

1995 No. 2
The first article uses plant-level data on both expenditures and retirements to show how microeconomic investment decisions lead to aggregate investment dynamics. The second reviews the changes in regulation, technology, and applied finance that underlie the recent transformation of U.S. commercial banking in order to forecast the industry's future under nationwide banking. The third looks for the common elements in the recent collapse of the Mexican peso and several other currency crises of the last twenty years. The fourth investigates the link between stock price movements and real economic activity, in particular, examining whether stock values have a causative effect. And the fifth article examines the existing evidence on the relationship between the size of government and economic performance, in light of the great increase in government involvement in the industrialized economies since World War II.

1995 No. 1
The first article analyzes trade liberalization across countries to trace the effects of increasing global integration on economic performance. The second examines the experience of floating exchange rate regimes in the aftermath of the Bretton Woods system. The third examines the role of permanent job loss in, labor market dynamics. The fourth assesses the field of growth theory. And the fifth article considers the causes and implications of the late-twentieth-century globalization of the world economy.

1994: Microeconomics
The papers address issues in labor, industrial organization, political economy, international trade, and health. Clifford Winston and Robert Crandall examine historical relationships between federal regulatory policies and voters' presidential preferences. Robert Staiger and Frank Wolak relate the timing of dumping investigations to the economic impact of U.S. antidumping laws. Donald Kenkel and David Ribar investigate whether alcohol consumption affects the earnings of young adults. Patricia Anderson and Bruce Meyer provide new evidence on the extent of job tenure and turnover. Henry Aaron and Barry Bosworth analyze the politics and economics of recent health care reform proposals. Paul Joskow, Richard Schmalensee, and Natalia Tsukanova describe Russia's industrial structure and competition policies.

1994 No. 2
The articles span a range of topics: the effects of tax changes on business investment; liquidity constraints as a determinant of inventory fluctuations; the effects of not coordinating fiscal and monetary policies; the increasing transitory variance of earnings; and the likely contribution of computers and related equipment to productivity.

1994 No. 1
The first article examines how changing U.S. trade patterns, particularly trade with developing countries, have affected U.S. manufacturing. The second article presents a detailed empirical study of the role that saving incentive plans, such as 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts, have played in personal and national saving over the past several decades. The third article explores the connection between employer-provided health insurance for retirees and the decision to retire, focusing primarily on the age at retirement. The fourth article looks at recent economic performance in Mexico and the effects of the currency overvaluation that has emerged. The report in this issue examines the reported weakness in the growth of U.S. real wages and compensation over the past 20 years.

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1993: Microeconomics 2
The conference papers examined U.S. industrial competitiveness and international comparisons of productivity. Bart van Ark and Dirk Pilat estimated and compared the productivitieso f the manufacturings ectors of Germany,J apan,a nd the United States. Martin Neil Baily showed that regulation and the extent of competition affect the productivities of service industries in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Robert Lawrence and Matthew Slaughter made the case that foreign trade is not the reason for the widening of the wage distribution among U.S. workers. Richard Caves and Matthew Krepps examined the hypothesis that companies may suffer from "fat," where they hold too many nonproduction workers. Bronwyn Hall found that the return to research and development (R&D) fell in the 1980s, and she explored the reasons for this. In the final paper Paul Romer presented a new proposal for a voluntary levy on companies to fund technology development.

1993: Microeconomics 1
Papers in this edition examined the compensation of top executives in regulated companies versus unregulated companies, compared layoffs in the early 90s recession versus the early 80s recession, examined a survey to make inferences about the value to consumers of pain and suffering awards, argued that R&D in one product area can provide spillover benefits to R&D in another area within the same company, and provided a short history of U.S.-Japan semiconductor trade and discusses the various trade problems that have emerged and policies that have been used.

1993 No. 2
The first article presents a new model of the way in which distorted incentives adversely affect financial behavior, focusing especially on how deposit insurance coupled with inadequate regulation led to the thrift industry crisis. The second examines the risk premium on equities-the spread between expected real returns on bonds and stocks-and presents evidence that it has decreased in recent years. The third presents fresh data and analysis of the Russian program to privatize firms. The fourth examines the importance of the credit channel between monetary policy and real economic activity. The fifth provides new empirical evidence on the connection between economic expansion and poverty. The report in this issue questions the accepted wisdom about how U.S. exporters price in foreign markets.

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Report

1993 No. 1
The first article examines a common critique of American capitalism: that the stock market systematically undervalues long-term investments and relatively intangible assets. The second article presents a comprehensive analysis of the September 1992 crisis that led to the breakdown of the European monetary system, and offers a prescription for reconstituting that system. The third article takes as its starting point the disappointing recovery from the recent U.S. recession and looks at what is distinctive about the economy's behavior in the periods around recessions and what was special about the latest recession. The first of three reports in this issue investigates the role of various factors, including governance, in transforming state enterprises in Poland, and suggests implications of the Polish experience for the privatization process elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The second report analyzes whether the recent rapid advance in U.S. productivity is as special as some have suggested. The last report examines the likely effect of proposed changes in the investment tax credit on future investment, drawing upon historical evidence about the importance of tax incentives for equipment investment.

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1992: Microeconomics
Papers in this edition covered a range of issues in technology, productivity, labor markets, financial management, and the cost of a carbon tax.

1992 No. 2
The first article examines the likely impact of resource limits and environmental degradation on world growth. The second presents a model of consumer saving behavior focusing on the desire to prepare against job loss and income decline. The first of three reports in this issue investigates the connection between equipment investment and economic growth. The second analyzes the first year of Russia's economic reform. The last provides new estimates of the income elasticity of money demand.

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Reports

1992 No. 1
The first paper presents a model of regional economic performance and uses it to examine the general features of regional growth and fluctuations, with insights for the U.S. states and the European Community. The remaining papers and final report of this volume explore the transition underway in the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The second paper explores the process of stabilization and economic reform in Russia. The third paper grapples with the elusive question of what shapes the economic behavior of the people of the ex-communist countries. The fourth paper raises a number of important questions about new credits scheduled to be channeled to the countries of the former Soviet bloc through the international financial institutions. The concluding report of this volume examines the economic transition in eastern Germany and the obstacles that lie ahead.

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Reports

1991: Microeconomics
In this edition, Richard E. Caves, Michael D. Whinston, and Mark A. Hurwitz looked at the pharmaceutical industry and the entry of generic drugs when patents expire, and Fred Mannering and Clifford Winston studied brand loyalty in the auto industry. Following this was the study by Steve J. Davis and John Haltiwanger of the increase in wage inequality in U.S. manufacturing. The three papers on aspects of industrial organization consisted of two review essays, one by Franklin M. Fisher and the other by Alvin K. Klevorick, author of The Handbook on Industrial Organization and an analysis of the antitrust guidelines by Robert Willig.

1991 No. 2
The first paper examines how poverty in the United States worsened during the 1980s. The second paper explores the apparent upward drift in the natural rate of unemployment. The third attempts to disentangle the determinants of house prices. The first report of this volume looks for evidence of a credit crunch in the banking sector. The second report analyzes current state and local fiscal problems. A special symposium of four short papers examines prospects for the political and economic future of the republics of the former Soviet Union.

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Symposium on the Soviet Economy after Communism

1991 No. 1
The first paper analyzes the impact of currency union on the economy of East Germany and presents a wage subsidy proposal for East German industry. The second models the convergence of per capita income and output across U.S. states and European regions. The third employs household survey evidence to study the decline in economywide private saving. The fourth paper compares the U.S. banking system with the systems in Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. A shorter report looks at the connection between Japanese keiretsu and foreign trade.

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Report

1990: Microeconomics
The first five papers in this edition look at mergers, takeovers, and restructurings, and the implications of these for antitrust policy, while the last two papers focus on likely impact on productivity of changes in the rate of investment and low rate of saving in the U.S.

1990 No. 2
Four major papers explore hyperinflation, the cyclical movements of U.S. workers into and out of employment, whether the stock market has noise effects on business investment, and plans and prospects for European monetary union. Two shorter reports discuss privatizing property in Eastern Europe and recent U.S. trade performance.

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Reports

1990 No. 1
The first major paper evaluates the implications of the aging of the American population for optimal national saving. The second paper analyzes Eastern Europe's move to develop national market economies. The third paper takes a fresh look at the transmission mechanism, by which monetary policy affects aggregate demand. The first report returns to the unsettled issue of the relationship between the level of inflation and uncertainty about its future course. The second report analyzes changes in corporate leverage. The final report assesses the prospects for economic reform in the Soviet Union.

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Reports

1989: Microeconomics
The papers in this edition examine the validity of the economic theory of regulation, the theory that has provided the intellectual basis for the deregulation movement. The second examines how deregulation has worked in practice in the airline industry-a success story in the eyes of many economists but a disaster in the eyes of some members of the public. And the third looks at the electric power industry, one that many people believe is ripe for partial or complete deregulation. Next comes a paper examining the pattern of wages across industries. The authors argue that there is a solid empirical basis for the idea that some industries provide good jobs and some bad jobs. And policy should encourage the growth of good jobs. The issue concludes with two studies of patents and technology development. These papers look at recent trends in patenting and explain a striking new method that has been developed to value the protection that patents provide.

1989 No. 2
The first major paper, by William D. Nordhaus, examines theories of the political business cycle that model how political administrations may manipulate the economy to enhance their reelection prospects. The second major paper, by Steven N. Durlauf, analyzes the persistence of shocks to aggregate output, and discusses the implications of persistence for stabilization policy. The first report, by Benjamin M. Friedman and David I. Laibson, looks at the extreme movements in prices on the U.S. stock market and presents a statistical model for characterizing them. Two reports, by Daniel J. B. Mitchell and by Michael L. Wachter and William H. Carter, assess current wage and labor market conditions in an attempt to forecast whether inflation is likely to accelerate over the next few years. Finally, a symposium of four reports, by Richard N. Cooper, Rudiger Dornbusch, Vittorio Grilli, and Merton J. Peck, examines issues surrounding Europe 1992.

Remembered

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Report

Reports on Wage Development and Prospects

Symposium on Europe 1992

1989 No. 1
The first major paper provides a model showing a central role for job vacancies in explaining the dynamics of the labor market. The second paper speculates on how institutional changes over the past decade have altered the way in which U.S. monetary policy affects the national economy. The third paper examines the correlation among the stock price indexes of Japan, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States before and after the stock market crash of October 1987. The fourth paper focuses on the Federal Reserve's measures of capacity utilization and questions the conventional interpretation of high capacity utilization as signaling the need for contractionary monetary policy. The first of two reports details the plight of the nation's troubled thrift industry, evaluates the legislative solution crafted by the administration and Congress, and looks ahead to signs of possible trouble in the banking industry. The final report examines the way exchange rate changes in the dollar are reflected in U.S. prices of imported manufactured goods.

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Reports

1988 No. 2
The first major paper focuses on the post-1973 slowdown of U.S. productivity growth and on the extent to which measurement problems may have distorted our perception of the slowdown. The second paper challenges the validity of the widely accepted natural rate hypothesis and argues that demand management can affect an economy's long-run average level of output and unemployment. The third major paper presents a new model of labor turnover in the United States and relates it to competing macroeconomic theories. The first of four reports in this issue examines capital gains taxation in the United States, with emphasis on the revenue consequences of cutting the capital gains tax rate. The second challenges prevailing hard-landing scenarios associated with the U.S. budget and trade deficits. Two final reports assess the dangers and benefits of debt buybacks, an increasingly popular debt-reduction strategy of LDC debtors.

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Reports

1988 No. 1
Two articles present new Keynesian theories of the macroeconomy and compare, against alternative theories, the ability of the new theories to explain key features of the economy. A third article examines the recent rapid growth of debt among U.S. nonfinancial corporations and its implications for their financial stability. A fourth article looks at the effect that capital market imperfections have on U.S. business investment and its financing. One report in this issue analyzes European unemployment and the likely consequences of demand stimulation in Europe. A second report looks at the extended slowdown in U.S. wage inflation

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Reports

1987 No. 3: Microeconomics
Three of the papers in this issue look at factors that affect the productivity of manufacturing plants. The fourth paper reports the results of a survey that asked R& D directors how they protect the intellectual property rights resulting from their companies' research. The fifth and sixth papers examine the organization of markets.

1987 No. 2
The first major article analyzes the thrift industry crisis. The second looks at the role of government policymaking in Korea's economic success and at issues raised by that country's trade surplus. The third examines the likely effects of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 on U.S. corporate and total private saving. Three shorter reports explore, respectively, Japan's low level of imports, the use of exit bonds as a way to resolve the LDC debt crisis, and the low U.S. national saving rate.

Remembered

Articles

Reports

1987 No. 1
The first major article seeks to explain the persistence of the massive U.S. trade deficit despite the dramatic fall in the dollar since the first quarter of 1985. The second explores the speed with which wages and prices respond to each other and to real shocks to the economy. The third attempts to sort out the contributions of Keynesian and classical forces to unemployment in both the United States and Europe. A shorter report analyzes the help-wanted index as a measure of job vacancies and investigates the relation between vacancies and unemployment. A special symposium of four short papers examines the merits of trade protection as a response to the U.S. trade deficit.

Articles

Report

Symposium on Trade Protection

1986 No. 2
One major article analyzes the oil price collapse of 1986 and draws inferences for the future of oil prices. A second explores the links between imperfect competition in product markets and the performance of the U.S. macroeconomy. A third seeks to explain the apparent upward drift of the "normal" unemployment rate in the United States. Four shorter reports examine, respectively, the LDC debt crisis, the role of debt in the U.S. farm crisis, the causes of the 1980s slump in Europe, and the procedure for seasonally adjusting the U.S. unemployment rate.

Articles

Reports

1986 No. 1
Three major articles cover, respectively, the role of liquidity constraints in tax policy analysis, the perplexing relationship between short-term and long-term interest rates, and the relations between the cost of capital and business fixed investment. A special symposium of four short papers explores exchange rate, trade, and capital flow issues arising from the fluctuation of the dollar's exchange rate during the early 1980s.

Articles

Symposium on Exchange Rates, Trade, and Capital Flows

1985 No. 2
One article analyzes and evaluates the floating exchange rate system. Another studies the aggregate consumption function, including the response of consumption spending to the tax changes of the 1980s. One article and a shorter report examine the Latin American debt problem. Two other reports focus on union wage developments and on technological innovation as an explanation for productivity.

Articles

Reports

1985 No. 1
Three articles cover, respectively, the determinants of U. S. business investment, wage developments in declining, unionized industries, and the U.S. economic policy posture during the 1980s. A special symposium of three short papers and three discussion papers explores exchange rate movements and their implications. One shorter report examines the disinflation of the 1980s.

Articles

Symposium on the Exchange Rate

Report

1984 No. 2
Four major articles cover the causes of high interest rates, the Latin American debt crisis, bank deregulation and policy effectiveness, and a formal model of stock prices. Two shorter reports examine the effect of the exchange rate on the U.S. price level and why unemployment fell so fast in the recovery.

Articles

Reports

1984 No. 1
Three major articles cover macroeconomic issues of current policy concern: a new analysis of the potential gains from policy coordination among nations; a careful assessment of foreign industrial targeting and its impact on U.S. industry; and a statistical analysis evaluating recent trends in productivity, price-wage margins, and the capital share of national income. Three reports in this issue assess the importance for union wage behavior of recent market, institutional, and legal developments; examine the expectations theory relating long-term and short-term interest rates; and analyze how MI targeting as a means of conducting monetary policy has been affected by regulatory and institutional changes in the financial system.

Articles

Reports

1983 No. 2
The papers address questions of immediate concern for decisionmakers, as well as other long-standing issues about the economic system and how its performance can be improved. Topics include experience with disinflationary policies in both the United Kingdom and the United States, the possible importance of attitudinal factors in the productivity slowdown, and the distortions caused by many aspects of business taxation.

Remembered

Articles

Reports

1983 No. 1
The papers address puzzles and policy issues from many parts of the current economic scene: floating exchange rates, U.S. competitiveness, labor market conditions, interest rate developments, unemployment insurance in the United States, and unemployment around the world.

Articles

Reports

1982 No. 2
Two articles deal with topics that have been central themes in the economic programs advanced by the Reagan administration: the need to encourage business investment and the desire to return federal program responsibilities to state and local governments. Four reports in this issue cover a range of topics: the likely consequences of decontrolling gas prices, financial problems arising from high interest rates and recession, evidence on the productivity slowdown, and the relation between bankruptcies and the financial policies of corporations.

Articles

Reports

1982 No. 1
One article examines proposals for a gold standard. A second examines alternative models for projecting the effects of policy changes and assesses the forecasts of the Reagan administration. A third evaluates the Swedish attempt at a countercyclical investment policy rule. Three reports in this issue look at the significance of recent wage concessions, the costs of reducing inflation through restrictive monetary policy, and issues concerning how monetary policy should be conducted.

Articles

Reports

1981 No. 2
Two articles focus on inflation, attempting both to illuminate our understanding of economic performance during the past fifteen years and to evaluate some alternative theoretical models of inflation. A third article examines one important attempt to end inflation: the economic policies of Mrs. Thatcher's Conservative government in the United Kingdom. A fourth article presents a new analysis of inventory fluctuations. A short report in this issue examines the debt of less-developed countries; a second analyzes the uncertainty surrounding monthly unemployment statistics.

Articles

Reports

1981 No. 1
Four articles address economic issues of current importance: the causes of the slowdown in productivity growth, the impacts of various proposals for tax reform on investment and the stock market, financial innovations and their implications for monetary policy, and the importance of oil prices and other economic developments on current account balances and exchange rates. Two shorter reports examine the problems with traditional mortgages and retirement annuities in a period of inflation, and the characteristics of price expectations by business during the 1970s.

Articles

Reports

1980 No. 2
Two articles focus on inflation, attempting both to illuminate our understanding of economic performance during the past fifteen years and to evaluate some alternative theoretical models of inflation. A third article examines one important attempt to end inflation: the economic policies of Mrs. Thatcher's Conservative government in the United Kingdom. A fourth article presents a new analysis of inventory fluctuations. A short report in this issue examines the debt of less-developed countries; a second analyzes the uncertainty surrounding monthly unemployment statistics.

Articles

Reports

1980 No. 1
The articles cover topics that have been of major interest to the profession and of concern to policymakers during the decade of the panel's existence: stabilization policy, the theory of employment arrangements, the system of flexible exchange rates, and inflation.


Remembered

Articles
  •  Stabilization Policy Ten Years After
    James Tobin, Edmund S. Phelps, William Poole, Martin Feldstein, Hendrik Houthakker, Franco Modigliani, Patric Hendershott, Benjamin Friedman, George Perry, James Duesenberry, William Fellner, Robert Gordon, William Branson, Martin Baily, William Nordhaus

  • Employment Fluctuations and Wage Rigidity
    Robert E. Hall, Martin Neil Baily, Lawrence H. Summers, James Duesenberry, Franco Modigliani, William Nordhaus, James Tobin, Robert Gordon, Peter Kenen, Thomas Juster, Robin Marris

  • Exchange Rate Economics: Where Do We Stand?
    Rudiger Dornbusch, William H. Branson, Marina v. N. Whitman, Peter Kenen, Hendrik Houthakker, Robert E. Hall, Robert Lawrence, George Perry, William Fellner, William Brainard, George von Furstenburg

  • Inflation in Theory and Practice
    George L. Perry, William Fellner, Robert J. Gordon, James Duesenberry, Robert E. Hall, Christopher Sims, William Nordhaus, Robin Marris, Thomas Juster, John Shoven, Benjamin Friedman, James Tobin

1979 No. 2
Three articles address economic puzzles of current importance. The first identifies the contrasting behavior of real wages among major industrial countries during the 1970s and examines its causes and consequences. The second explores the reasons why residential construction remained strong between mid-1978 and mid- 1979. The third investigates the pronounced slowdown in U.S. productivity. Two shorter reports are also addressed to issues concerning productivity, while a final report presents facts and figures on the 1979 petroleum shortage.

Articles

Reports

Communication

1979 No. 1
The first article analyzes labor market dynamics and unemployment, a topic that has received attention in this journal several times, beginning with Robert Hall's article in 1970. The second examines business fixed investment, bringing to bear the experience of the seventies on some questions raised by Charles Bischoff's article in 1971. The third, which considers the appropriate response of monetary and fiscal policy to supply shocks, follows up the analysis by Robert J. Gordon in 1975. Five shorter reports in this issue address a range of current topics of theoretical and policy importance.

Articles

Reports

1978 No. 3
The first article analyzes in depth the determinants of and the outlook for wages in collective bargaining. The other three articles address particular aspects of interest rates and financial markets. One focuses on the issue of the crowding out of private investment by the financing of government deficits and essentially reaffirms the constructive potential of fiscal policies to stimulate economic activity. Another offers a basically negative verdict on the sensitivity of household saving to changes in interest rates. The final article offers some warnings to monetary policymakers and economic forecasters derived from the relationships between short- and long-term interest rates implied by "efficient-markets theory." The single report in this issue indicates that a squeeze on corporate profitability that developed during the late 1960s has gradually relaxed during the 1970s.

Articles

Report

1978 No. 2
This marks the first time that an entire conference of the panel, and hence an entire issue of this journal, has been concentrated on a single topic: namely the inflationary era starting from the mid-60s.

Remembered

Articles

Report

Symposium

1978 No. 1
The three articles below reflect important challenges to professional thinking arising out of the economic developments of recent years. One reaffirms the potential constructive contribution of stabilization policy, despite the disappointing record of the past decade. The second underlines concern about the distorting effect of inflation on interest rates (and hence on investment and saving decisions) under our current tax system. The third analyzes theoretically the causes and consequences of changes in exchange rates under the new regime of flexible rates.

Articles

Reports

1977 No. 2
A wide variety of financial topics are covered by the four articles: a critique of keying monetary policy to short-run monetary targets; an assessment of the impact of stock and bond valuation on corporate investment; an examination of the debt positions of less developed countries; and a study of two-way relationships between inflation and monetary policy in various industrial nations. The two reports explore aspects of labor markets: one develops an analytical framework for evaluating government programs that directly create jobs, and the other interprets recent trends in laborforce participation.

Articles

Reports

1977 No. 1
The topics covered span a wide range of concerns of the panel: the estimation of potential gross national product, the determinants of investment demand, the effects of changes in wealth on consumer spending, the effectiveness of temporary tax changes, corporate profitability, cyclical influences on the quality of jobs, and wage and price interactions.

Articles

Reports

1976 No. 3
Presented at that time, and published here, were four articles and one report. One of the five studies focuses on recent experience in international exchange rates, two are concerned with the contractual setting of wages, and two explore certain features of the demand for money.

Articles

Report

1976 No. 2
The first article of this issue examines the capacity situation, primarily through a detailed analysis of the aluminum, paper, and steel industries. The second examines anew the basic models of business inventory policy that attempt to explain the volatile swings in inventory investment in durable-goods manufacturing. The third reports on a wide-ranging investigation of the impact of minimum wages on other wages, employment, and family incomes. The fourth article offers a theoretical analysis of the scope and limitations of "rational expectations" in macroeconomics. A shorter report that concludes this issue offers some new evidence on a question regarding the labor-market activities of workers on temporary layoff.

Remembered

Articles

Report

1976 No. 1
This issue includes several new studies of topics that have regularly absorbed the sanel-demographic aspects of unemployment, Phillips-curve relationships, money demand, and monetary policy. It also contains the completion of a two-part study on inflation-adjusted measurement of profits, an evaluation of countercyclical public-employment programs, and an exchange of views on seasonal adjustment of unemployment.

Articles

Reports

1975 No. 3
Three of these articles continue the panel's analysis of inflation, dealing with corporate profits accounting under inflation, the behavior of raw-materials prices, and the importance of aggregate demand in price behavior; the fourth explores some current controversies in international economics.

Erratum

Articles

Report

1975 No. 2
The problems of inflation and recession continued to occupy the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity in its seventeenth conference, held in Washington on September 11-12, 1975. One or another aspect of these problems is investigated in each of the four articles and two reports in this issue of Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.

Articles

Reports

1975 No. 1
With the nation caught in its worst postwar recession, the sixteenth conference of the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity, held on April 24-25, 1975, devoted much of its attention to the current state of the economy. One of the three articles and six of the seven reports in this issue address questions directly related to the recession, including the events and policies of 1974 and policies for the future.

Articles

Reports

1974 No. 3
One of the papers deals with the role of the dollar in the world economy, one with the fundamental nature of the labor market in the United States, and three with different aspects of the economy's cyclical performance: the viability of thrift institutions during periods of tight money, the cyclical behavior of productivity in manufacturing, and the impact of recession on different groups in the labor market.

Articles

Report

1974 No. 2
Of the six papers, two deal with wage inflation, two with unemployment, and two with petroleum supplies. Unemployment and wage inflation are standard fare for macroeconomists and have been the subjects of many papers in previous issues of this journal. On the other hand, the energy crisis is a new concern of macroeconomics.

Articles

Reports

1974 No. 1
A number of the papers in this issue deal with the special problems of inflation today and the way they complicate the conduct of policy.

Articles

Report

1973 No. 3
The first article of this volume analyzes how energy requirements will be met in the long run. The second article presents a broadly ranging review, updating, and synthesis of quantitative research on the demand for money. The third article discusses analytically the arguments for and against protecting homebuilding from the impact of restrictive credit conditions. The last major article of this issue analyzes four available measures of operating rates in manufacturing - the Federal Reserve Board index, the Wharton School index, the McGraw-Hill utilization survey, and an index that he constructs from the McGraw-Hill survey of capacity growth. The first shorter report of this issue furthers the discussion of capacity utilization measurements. The second shorter report presents new evidence on the relative occupational success of black and white young men in the late 1960s. The final report of this volume analyzes the impact of the price and wage control programs of 1971-73, continuing the monitoring of controls by the Brookings panel.

Articles

Reports

Correction

1973 No. 2
The first article of this issue evaluates the performance of leading indicators in predicting cyclical turning points. The second article explores the long-run growth and short-run fluctuation in the revenue yielded by the federal individual income tax. The third paper of this issue explores the theoretical and empirical implications of relationships between expected inflation and interest rates. The first report reviews the "mystery" of the weakness of the dollar in the spring and early summer of 1973. One report focuses on the recent rapid increase in food and farm price. The brief report that concludes this issue examines some problems of short-run strategy for monetary policy.

Articles

Reports

1973 No. 1
The first article of this volume analyzes the impact on state and local budgets of various types of federal grants. The second article of this volume studies changes in the labor market position of black Americans since World War II and concludes that they made "dramatic economic progress" during the last decade. The third article of this volume analyzes the social welfare costs of higher unemployment. The fourth article presents evidence that the quality as well as the quantity of employment is raised by higher levels of overall economic activity. Two shorter reports in this issue deal with the recent inflation and possible steps to combat it. The final report in this issue Stephen Magee presents an analysis of some short-term impacts of changes in exchange rates on the trade balance.

Articles

Reports

1972 No. 3
The first article of this issue seeks to explain the slowdown in productivity growth that marked the late sixties and to project productivity for the rest of the decade of the seventies. The second article of this issue presents a model of business investment spending that differs substantially from other models of the investment process that have been developed in recent years. The third article deals with an important problem of statistical methodology in estimating the potency of fiscal and monetary tools. The fourth article presents a quantitative assessment of the loss of U.S. welfare arising from restrictions on international trade. The fifth major article of this volume analyzes the role of turnover in the labor force and, particularly, its interrelationship with unemployment. The first report in this issue, examines the recent and prospective behavior of consumer saving rates. The final report of this issue examines the erratic behavior of the official series on real spendable weekly earnings that is published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Articles

Reports

Communication

1972 No. 2
The first article of this issue examines the job market experience of various labor force groups by analyzing the flows of workers into and out of unemployment. The second article of this issue discusses the reasons why the Federal Reserve cannot precisely hit a target for the size of the money stock-demand deposits and currency-and propose several reforms designed to improve its aim. The third article reviews the experience under Phase I1 of the wage-price controls program. The first report in this issue performs a statistical appraisal of the impact of the wage-price controls. The second report in this volume seeks a common cause for the worldwide wage explosion of recent years. The final report of this issue reviews recent developments and the outlook for federal fiscal policy.

Articles

Reports

1972 No. 1
The first article estimates that the 1971 currency realignment, when fully effective, will bolster the United States merchandise trade balance by $7 billion to $8 billion a year. The second paper examines the effects of inflation and of transitory changes in income on consumer saving and spending behavior, with particular reference to the inflationary experience of recent years. The third article reaffirms analytically the desirability of an activist fiscal-monetary strategy. Four shorter reports in the present volume discuss the Phase II wageprice control program.

Remembered

Articles

Reports

1971 No. 3
The first major article explores the implications of the changing demographic composition of the work force for aggregate output and productivity in the economy. The second article investigates the questions of how rapid a return to full employment should be sought by expansionary policies and what general rules might govern policy formulation. The third article investigates the built-in flexibility on the expenditure side of the federal budget. One report summarizes proposals for manpower policy based on continuing research on the inflation-unemployment problem. A fourth major article in the volume assesses what manpower programs could achieve, reviewing both our experience with existing and past programs and the likely results of various proposed programs. A shorter report in this issue assesses the near-term outlook for business spending on plant and equipment using statistical models presented in an earlier article in this journal.

Articles

Reports

1971 No. 2
The first article of this issue analyzes recent patterns of corporate external financing, investigating particularly the growing volume of new issues of corporate bonds that has appeared in recent quarters. The second article analyzes trends in U.S. international trade and comparative advantage. The third article investigates the nation's supply capabilities for homebuilding by considering the adequacy of labor and materials for a further expansion of residential construction. The fourth and final major article considers differences in the response of consumers to changes in different types of income as a possible explanation for the major swings in personal saving that have puzzled economists during the last few years. One of the shorter reports in this issue estimates the impact on employment of the 1970-71 deterioration in the U.S. trade surplus. The remainder of this issue consists of six shorter reports devoted to various aspects of the current inflation problem.

Articles

Reports

1971 No. 1
The first article in this issue analyzes the forecasting and policy implications of five alternative views of the forces motivating spending on business investment. The second article, analyzes quantitative credit controls, an issue that was heatedly debated during the period of tight money in 1969-70. The third article develops a model of wage and price determination that extends his study published last year. The fourth and final article estimates the extent to which consumption was directly curbed by the personal income tax surcharge of 1968-70. Three shorter reports look at the recent unemployment experience of professional and technical workers; analyze the 1970 balance-of-payments deficit; and offer views of the current budget outlook.

Articles

Reports

Communication

1970 No. 3
The first article in this issue makes the case for a passive balance-of-payments strategy by the United States. The second article assembles empirical and analytical information on the nature of unemployment in the United States under conditions of essentially full employment. The third article, George Perry analyzes the importance of the composition of unemployment by age and sex for the current inflation and for the trade-off between inflation and unemployment that confronts the nation. The five shorter reports in this issue deal with various timely subjects: the most recent disappointments in the performance of prices, uncertainties in the overall economic outlook for 1971, the sag in corporate profits, Federal Reserve open market policy in 1970, and the key characteristics of the demand for money.

Articles

Reports

1970 No. 2
The first article of this issue, Saul Hymans studies the problems of explaining and predicting consumer demand for automobiles and other durable goods. The second article deals with the elusive and highly volatile area of inventory investment. The third article in this issue, William Branson distinguishes between the "new" and "old" views of international capital movements and develops the implications of the new view for monetary policy. Three shorter reports in this issue deal with fiscal policy, residential construction activity, and plant and equipment expenditures

Articles

Reports

1970 No. 1
The first article of this issue focuses attention on the 1969 acceleration of inflation and on prospective price-wage performance in 1970-75. The second article, Craig Swan analyzes the performance of homebuilding in 1969, comparing it with the experience of 1966 and drawing lessons for the future. Six shorter reports in this issue deal with sectors of the economy not covered by the three principal papers-consumer demand, plant and equipment expenditures, inventories, net exports, unemployment, and monetary policy.

Articles

Reports