The authors of this article suggest that many of the explanations for the 1994 crisis are based on questionable assumptions and dubious analysis. They contend that, when trying to explain the crisis, most authors have concentrated on the wrong economic "fundamentals." They challenge the...

Governments of countries around the world, including the United States, are considering implementing social security reform programs. In most cases, one of the principal goals of the reform program is to convert a pay-as-you-go social security system into a fully funded system. Most economists...

Economic commentators regularly urge the Fed to use the level of unemployment or the rate of change in wages as leading indicators of inflation and as guides to whether they should ease or tighten monetary policy. The logic behind this approach is based on modern (post-1970) Keynesian...

Since the third quarter of 2000, the U.S. economy began to experience a slowdown in its rate of growth. This slowdown serves as a reminder that the business cycle is still alive and raises the following questions: What do we know about the driving forces behind the business cycle? What should...

Recent projections of a number of countries with pay-as-you-go pension systems have shown significant future actuarial imbalances. As a consequence, several of these countries, including Mexico, are engaged in redesigning their pension systems. ; From the U.S. perspective, Mexico's reform is of...

This article reexamines the view that monetary policy affects real (inflation-adjusted) economic variables in the short run but that its powers fade quickly in the long run (that is, that money is long-run superneutral). This view relies on the assumption that monetary policy can have real...