Editors’ Summary of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity – 1995 No 2

George L. Perry and

George L. Perry Senior Fellow Emeritus - Economic Studies

William C. Brainard

WCB

William C. Brainard

THE BROOKINGS PANEL on Economic Activity held its sixtieth conference
in Washington, D.C., on September 7 and 8, 1995. This issue of
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity includes the articles and discussions
presented at that conference. 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 transformationo f U.S. commercialb ankingi n
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.