Academic writing about monetary policy has been useful to practical central bankers, but more of (certain aspects of) the economists' way of thinking could profitably be imported. On the other hand, academics could improve their analysis, and make it more useful to policymakers, if they would...

Empirical and theoretical aspects of inventory behavior became hot topics in the 1950s and early 1960s. No one seemed to notice the tension that was developing between the emerging macroeconomic and microeconomic views of inventories. Macroeconomists routinely thought of inventories as a...

Alan Krueger and Timothy Taylor interviewed Zvi Griliches, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University, at his home near the Harvard campus on June 21, 1999. The interview touches on his harrowing journey from Lithuania to Chicago; years at the University of Chicago; the move to...

This article contains an interview with Edmond Malinvaud. Professor Malinvaud describes the origins of his interest in economics, teachers who had a major influence on his development as an economist, his visit to the Cowles Commission in 1950, the substance of his research, and the...

To commemorate the new millennium and 50 issues of JEP, we have commissioned a series of essays in three broad areas. The first set of papers in this issue look back at key developments in the economy and economic thinking. In a second group of articles, we asked for predictions about the future...

Direct reports of subjective well-being may have a useful role in the measurement of consumer preferences and social welfare, if they can be done in a credible way. Can well-being be measured by a subjective survey, even approximately? In this paper, we discuss research on how individuals'...

We consider the recently proposed "income-contingent loan" (ICL), in which Congress would establish a national trust fund from which students could borrow money to finance the cost of attending college; students would repay these loans by contributing a fixed proportion of their subsequent income...

This paper reviews and interprets the literature on the effects of school resources on students' eventual earnings and educational attainment. In addition, new evidence is presented on the impact of the great disparity in school resources between black and white students in North and South...