One of the central questions in macroeconomics for many years has been whether government policy can affect private saving rates, and if so to what extent and through what channels. The question has remained controversial because, as with other macroeconomic questions, experiments to check...

The recent European experience of high persistent unemployment has led to the development of theories of unemployment hysteresis embodying the idea that the equilibrium unemployment rate depends on the history of the actual unemployment rate. This paper summarizes two directions of research on...

This paper re-examines the relationship between population aging and economic growth. We confirm previous research such as Cutler, Poterba, Sheiner, and Summers (1990) and Acemoglu and Restrepo (2017) that show positive correlation between measures of population aging and per-capita output...

European unemployment is widely regarded as a problem of excessive real wages. This view as it is usually expressed carries the disturbing implication that there is a sharp conflict between the interests of those currently employed and the unemployed because it suggests that increases in...

This paper responds to Franco Modigliani's recent critique of our 1981 paper on the importance of intergenerational transfers for U.S. savings. Modigliani's paper is the latest salvo in a long running debate over the importance of intergenerational transfers in explaining savings behavior. While...

This paper examines the changing cyclical variability of economic activity in the United States. It first shows that the decline in variability since World War II cannot be explained by changes in the composition of economic activity or by the avoidance of financial panics. We then show that...

This paper reconsiders the effects of taxation on risky assets, recognizing the importance of variations in asset prices. We show that earlier analyses which assumed that depreciation rates are constant and that the future price of capital goods is known with certainty are very misleading, as...

This paper argues that the versions of both permanent income and life-cycle theories which have recently become fashionable are inconsistent with the grossest features of cross-country and cross-section data on consumption and income. There is clear evidence that consumption and income growth...

In this paper, we re-examine the standard analysis of the short-run effect of a personal tax cut. If consumer spending generates more money demand than other components of GNP, then tax cuts may, by increasing the demand for money, depress aggregate demand. We examine a variety of evidence and...

This paper develops a procedure for adjusting the Current Population Survey gross changes data for the effects of reporting errors. The corrected data suggest that the labor market is much less dynamic than has frequently been suggested. Conventional measures sy understate the duration of...