In late 2008 and early 2009, there has been a serious deterioration in the economic outlook of political leaders, the media and many economic analysts. Comparisons of recent performance and the outlook have degenerated into comparisons with the Great Depression of the 1930s, suggesting that the...

The United States economy has suffered over the past four years from crises in mortgage foreclosures and in financial markets, as well as a long recession that some have referred to as the Great Recession. The links between these events, or more broadly the causes, extent and effects of these...

The U.S. manufacturing sector has become the poster child of the jobless recovery, the latest victim of the Bubble Economy. On Labor Day 2003 President Bush called for the creation of a new position of Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing in the Department of Commerce. The National Association...

Some analysts have argued that bubble excesses of the late-1990s led to excessive real investment, and that an important consequence was that capital formation has been depressed since then, as firms have let production catch up with the excessive capital stock. While this description broadly...

Milton Friedman, one of greatest economists of all time, died on November 16, 2006 at age 94. He was famous for his conclusion that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” and for the related notion that ultimately the only thing a central bank, such as the Federal...

House prices have risen quite sharply since 2000. Coming on the heels of a stock market crash, many analysts have raised the specter of collapse in house prices and have conjured up dire consequences from such a collapse. This article examines the extent of the house price rise, whether there...