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BPEA | 1987 No. 1

Editors’ Summary of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity – 1987 No 1

1987, No. 1


THIS ISSUE of Brookings Papers on Economic Activity contains papers
andd iscussions presenteda t the forty-thirdc onferenceo f the Brookings
Panel on Economic Activity, which was held in Washington, D.C., on
April 2 and 3, 1987. 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.