The 1896 presidential election between William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley has gained new salience in the wake of the 2016 contest. We provide the first systematic analysis of voting patterns in 1896, combining county-level returns with economic, financial, demographic and climatological...

The 1896 presidential election between William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley has gained new salience in the wake of the 2016 contest. We provide the first systematic analysis of voting patterns in 1896, combining county-level returns with economic, financial, demographic and climatological...

The 1896 presidential election between William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley has new salience in the wake of the 2016 presidential contest. We provide the first systematic analysis of presidential voting in 1896, combining county-level returns with economic, financial, and demographic...

We advance the proxy variable approach to production function estimation. We show that the invertibility assumption at its heart is testable. We characterize what goes wrong if invertibility fails and what can still be done. We show that rethinking how the estimation procedure is implemented...

Monetary policy transmits through broad financial conditions--interest rates, asset prices, credit spreads and exchange rates--rather than through the policy rate alone. Yet current frameworks remain anchored around r*, the neutral interest rate. We introduce FCI*, the neutral level of financial...