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Abstract What might cause the current expansion to come to an end? Without a negative shock, expansions go on and on. The economy is now enjoying even faster growth due [...]

Economist Arthur Okun believes that cyclical productivity fluctuations as a byproduct of demand-driven output cycles. The cyclical responses of employment, hours, labor force participation, and productivity to cyclical changes in output are discussed.

The annual growth rate of U.S. percapita real GDP remained remarkably steady at 2.1 percent between 1890 and 2007. Until recently, it was widely assumed that the Great Recession of [...]

A study was conducted to analyze economic growth in the US since 1870. Multi-factor productivity growth determined from inputs combining simple measures of labor hours and the capital stock and growth was examined. Results indicated that productivity in the 20th century was spearheaded by inventions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These inventions can be categorized into four classifications, namely, electricity, internal-combustion engines, 'rearranging molecules,' and communications/entertainment.

The effects of quality change and new products in the Consumer Price Index are evaluated by taking every product category and extrapolating findings on quality-change bias for related categories. The final estimate of quality-change bias is about 0.6% per year, which is slightly greater than the combined estimate of new-product and quality-change bias. The higher value is due to a more comprehensive review of related literature and consideration of the factors governing each of the 27 individual categories evaluated.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) exaggerates the change in the cost of living by around 1.1 percentage points a year, according to the CPI Commission. The CPI is, therefore, not an exact cost-of-living index because of practical and conceptual problems, although it is the most superior indicator available. The actual rate of price inflation is greatly exaggerated by the variations in the CPI, despite the revisions made by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. These changes in the CPI could continue to exaggerate the changes in the cost of living in the future.

The Econometric Society has concentrated on stabilizing the ratio of end-of-year net worth (NW) to total revenues (TR), or the latter net of realized capital gains, at roughly 50% since the 1980s. The NW-TR stood at 0.68 at the end of 1994. Moreover, consolidated net surplus was $80,684 in 1994. In the wake of the society's sound financial position, it has been recommended that rate increases be kept to a minimum and that the executive committee launched other profit-generating activities.

A comprehensive database covering significant macro variables in OECD countries at sectoral level has proven to be commendable but still contains a few errors and ambiguities, First, shifts in the relative price of nontradables do not have as significant a macroeconomic role as shown in the data base. Second, only a Marshallian distinction between short- and long-run supply schedules and a cost of adjustment are needed to derive an upward sloping S2 curve. The data base can also be used to explain the discrepancy of industry productivities in the US.

The 16th Annual Meeting of the International Seminar on Macroeconomics held on Jun. 28-29, 1993, focused on the economic challenges being faced by the European region. Among the topics discussed were the credibility of the bands of the European Monetary System, the persistent unemployment rate and planned structural changes in the economy. Seminar officials also reiterated their commitment to making the seminar the best policy-oriented macroeconomics conference in Europe.

The theoretical section of this paper develops a new nonstructural model of wage and price adjustment that integrates several concepts that have often been treated separately, including Phillips curve 'level effects', hysteresis 'change effects', the error-correction mechanism, and the role of changes in labor's share that act as a supply shock. The empirical analysis reaches two striking conclusions. First, during 1973-1990 coefficients in our German wage equations are remarkably similar to those in the U.S., with almost identical estimates of the Phillips curve slope, of the hysteresis effect, and of the NAIRU. The two countries also share similar inflation behavior, in that inflation depends more closely on the capacity utilization rate than on the unemployment rate. The big difference between the two countries is that there seems to be no feedback from wages to prices in Germany, and so high unemployment does not put downward pressure on the inflation rate. During the 1970s and 1980s in Germany there emerged a growing mismatch between the labor market and industrial capacity, so that the unemployment rate consistent with the mean (constant-inflation) utilization rate ('MURU') increased sharply, while in the U.S. the MURU was relatively stable.

Comparative economics studies economic behavior as it differs according to place or according to time period. International comparisons can illustrate basic economic principles in teaching both macroeconomics and microeconomics. Comparative macro offers perspective on monetary policy and the law of twin deficits, and international micro offers insights into even more basic principles. Comparisons of rich and poor countries can be used to help students to explore theories of economic growth and development.

The International Seminar on Macroeconomics (ISOM), founded in 1978, was one of the earliest collaborative activities of the NBER with economists and organizations in Europe. The proceedings of all but [...]