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1681 publications found
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Working Paper No. 359
October 01, 2002
Is There a Trade-Off between Inflation Variability and Output-gap Variability in the EMU Countries?
AbstractThis paper examines two issues. First, we compare, based on the ratio of output-gap variability to inflation variability, the monetary policy performance of eleven EMU countries for the whole period of the EMS. Second, we examine whether the introduction of an implicit inflation-targeting by the EMU member countries after the Maastricht Treaty changed the trade-off […]
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Working Paper No. 358
October 01, 2002
Threshold Effects in the US Budget Deficit
AbstractThis paper contributes to the debate on whether the United States’ large federal budget deficits are sustainable in the long run. The authors model the government deficit per capita as a threshold autoregressive process, finding evidence that the deficit is sustainable in the long run and that economic policymakers will intervene to reduce the per […]
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Working Paper No. 357
October 01, 2002
The Euro, Public Expenditure, and Taxation
AbstractThis paper explores the probable consequences for public expenditure in the United Kingdom if Britain were to join the euro. It focuses on the effects of sterling joining the euro (and the associated implications, such as monetary policy being governed by the European Central Bank). It does not consider any broader questions of the effects […]
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Working Paper No. 356
October 01, 2002
Asset Poverty in the United States, 1984–1999
AbstractUsing PSID data for the years 1984 to 1999, we estimate the level and severity of asset poverty. Our results indicate that the share of asset-poor households remained almost the same and the severity of poverty increased during this period, despite the growth in the economy and the financial markets. The race, age, education, and […]
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Working Paper No. 355
October 01, 2002
Can Monetary Policy Affect the Real Economy?
AbstractCurrent monetary policy involves the manipulation of the central bank interest rate (the repo rate), with the specific objective of achieving the goal(s) of monetary policy. The latter is normally the inflation rate, although in a number of instances this may include the level of economic activity (the monetary policy of the United States’ Federal […]
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Working Paper No. 353
September 01, 2002
Managed Care, Physician Incentives, and Norms of Medical Practice
AbstractThe incentive contracts that managed care organizations write with physicians have generated considerable controversy. Critics fear that if informational asymmetries inhibit patients from directly assessing the quality of care provided by their physician, competition will lead to a “race to the bottom” in which managed care plans induce physicians to offer only minimal levels of […]
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Working Paper No. 352
September 01, 2002
Critical Realism and the Political Economy of the Euro
AbstractThis paper is concerned with two issues. First, it discusses some of the main problems and inferences the methodological approach of critical realism raises for empirical work in economics, while considering an approach adopted to try to overcome these problems. Second, it provides a concrete illustration of these arguments, with reference to our recent research […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 68
August 01, 2002
Optimal CRA Reform
AbstractAt issue in the debate over the renewal of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 are the various yardsticks regulators use to judge whether individual institutions are meeting the credit and service needs of low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities. Based on careful examination of new CRA data and assessments of comments by selected stakeholders, […]
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Working Paper No. 351
August 01, 2002
Race, Ethnicity, and the Gender-poverty Gap
AbstractWe use data from the Current Population Survey (CPS 1994-2001) to document the relationship between gender-specific demographic variations and the gender-poverty gap among eight racial/ethnic groups. We find that black and Puerto Rican women experience a double disadvantage owing to being both women and members of a minority group. As compared with whites, however, gender […]
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Working Paper No. 350
July 01, 2002
Polish and Italian Schooling Then, Mexican Schooling Now?
AbstractThis paper relies on data from the census and the Current Population Survey (CPS) to compare levels of education attained by second-generation young people from important immigrant groups during the last great wave of immigration and by second-generation Mexican Americans today. In addition, it provides evidence, based on the CPS, about the earnings relative to […]
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Working Paper No. 349
July 01, 2002
State Policies and the Warranted Growth Rate
AbstractThis paper raises questions about austerity policies by investigating the effects of the state’s tax and expenditure policies on the warranted growth rate. It proposes two mechanisms to raise the warranted growth rate in the event that there is long-run unemployment. First, it incorporates Pasinetti’s taxation function into Harrod’s growth framework to show how, with […]
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Working Paper No. 348
June 01, 2002
Asset Prices, Liquidity Preference, and the Business Cycle
AbstractIn his Treatise on Money, John Maynard Keynes relied on two different premises to argue that the interest rate need not rise with rising levels of expenditure. One of these was the elasticity of the money supply, and the other was the interaction between financial and industrial circulation. A decrease (increase) in what Keynes called […]
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Working Paper No. 347
June 01, 2002
What Has Happened to Monetarism?
AbstractIt is widely perceived that today’s conventional monetary wisdom, and the common practice of monetary policy based thereupon, is essentially “monetarist” by nature, if not by name. One objective of this paper is to assess whether monetarism has had a lasting effect on the theory and practice of monetary policy; another is to scrutinize the […]
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Working Paper No. 346
June 01, 2002
CRA’s 25th Anniversary
AbstractThis paper focuses on the past, present, and future rules and regulations implementing CRA as developed, applied, and enforced by the federal bank and thrift regulators. The past rules and regulations refer to those in effect during the law’s first 18 years, through 1995, when CRA underwent its first major reform. The present CRA rules […]
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Working Paper No. 345
May 01, 2002
The “Third Way” and the Challenges to Economic and Monetary Union Macropolicies
AbstractIn the United Kingdom the emergence of a “New Labour” has been closely associated with the development of the notion of the “third way.” Tony Blair, for example, stated that “New Labour is neither old left nor new right. . . . Instead we offer a new way ahead, that leads from the centre but […]
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Strategic Analysis
April 01, 2002
Strategic Prospects and Policies for the US Economy
AbstractNotwithstanding the great achievements of the American economy, the growth of aggregate demand during the past several years has been structured in a way that would eventually prove unsustainable. During the main period of economic expansion, the fiscal stance tightened at a much greater pace than in any period during the previous 40 years, and […]
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Policy Notes No. 3
March 01, 2002
European Integration and the “Euro Project”
AbstractThe introduction of the euro has been a significant step in the integration of the economies of the countries that form the European Union (EU) and the 12 countries that comprise the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Its adoption not only means that a single currency prevails across the Eurozone, with reduced transactions costs for […]
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Working Paper No. 344
March 01, 2002
Dollarization
AbstractWhen economies “dollarize,” their exchange rate and monetary policy, both considered to be sources of instability, are simultaneously discarded. Often, dollarization becomes an attractive option for developing countries that have experienced successive failures of exchange rate and monetary management. This paper makes use of a theoretical model that shows, contrary to the commonly accepted view, […]
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Working Paper No. 343
February 01, 2002
Poles and Italians Then, Mexicans Now?
AbstractA good deal of recent discussion among social scientists concerned with immigration is about the disadvantages faced by immigrants who enter the American labor force with much-lower levels of skills than those possessed by the typical native white worker. Among contemporary immigrant groups, by far the most important example is the Mexicans. The challenges faced […]
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Working Paper No. 342
February 01, 2002
A Note on the Hicksian Concept of Income
AbstractEmpirical studies of intertemporal dynamics of individual income, distribution of personal income, and growth and distribution of national income are all based on statistics that rely on some concept of income. The dominant one today appears to be the so-called Haig-Simons-Hicks (HSH) concept of income. I examine the foundations of this concept in Hicks? Value […]
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Policy Notes No. 2
February 01, 2002
The Brazilian Swindle and the Larger International Monetary Problem
AbstractThe International Monetary Fund has offered Brazil a $30 billion loan, most of it reserved for next year, on condition that the country continue to run a large primary surplus in the government budget. In this way the Fund maintains a strong arm over Brazil’s next government. Any significant move toward fiscal expansion would trigger […]
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Policy Notes No. 1
January 01, 2002
Kick-Start Strategy Fails to Fire Sputtering US Economic Motor
AbstractThere is a strategic need, if a “growth recession” is to be avoided, for a new motor to drive the economy, particularly if there is a further decline in private expenditure relative to income that could generate a further hole in aggregate demand.
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Working Paper No. 341
November 01, 2001
Israeli Attitudes about Inter Vivos Transfers
AbstractUsing data from the 1994–95 Survey of Families in Israel—which includes 1,607 urban Jewish respondents interviewed on topics relating to work behavior, household income, wealth, assistance received from parents and given to children, and views about financial responsibilities between parents and children—the authors examined attitudes in Israel about intergenerational assistance and the effects of these […]
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Public Policy Brief No. 67
November 01, 2001
The Economic Consequences of German Unification
AbstractAlthough the costs associated with moving an antiquated socialist economy toward its capitalist counterpart was anticipated to be significant, German industrial efficiency was expected to quickly overcome any challenges. Things turned out rather differently. Conventional wisdom blamed poor economic performance on unification. The government and the Bundesbank therefore put in place fiscal and monetary policies […]
Download Public Policy Brief No. 67, 2002 PDF (325.91 KB)