Although it is generally recognized that the equilibrium real interest rate (ERR) varies over time, most recent work on policy analysis has been carried out under the assumption that this rate is constant. We show how this assumption can affect inferences about the conduct of policy in two...

The share of employment in manufacturing as well as the relative price of manufactures has declined sharply over the postwar period, while the share of manufacturing output relative to GDP has remained roughly constant. Household preferences turn out to play a key role in reconciling this...

Previous studies of the cyclical behavior of prices have found that the cross-correlations between output and prices in post-WWII U.S. data are generally negative. These correlations h have been interpreted as being more consistent with supply-driven models of business cycle fluctuations than...

As important as productivity growth is to the health of the economy, much remains to be understood about how and why its trend growth rate changes. This Economic Letter discusses some of the points of debate in the research on these issues.