This note is intended to introduce economists to a simple SIR model of the progression of COVID-19 in the United States over the next 12-18 months. An SIR model is a Markov model of the spread of an epidemic in a population in which the total population is divided into categories of being...

Is the exchange rate or the money growth rate the better instrument of monetary policy? A common argument is that the exchange rate has a natural advantage because it is more transparent: it is easier for the public to monitor than the money growth rate. We formalize this argument in a simple...

The CDC reports that 1.13 million Americans have died of COVID-19 through June of 2023. I use a model of the impact over the past three years of vaccines and private and public behavior to mitigate disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States to address two questions....