Thirty years ago it appeared that the best strategy for improving economic forecasts was to build bigger, more detailed models. As the costs of computing plummeted, considerable detail was added to models and more elaborate statistical techniques became feasible.

Price Indexes allow one to compare the average levels of prices at different times. Despite their widespread use, price indexes do not answer all questions as well as analysts might wish. Macroeconomic Price Indexes is a guide for users of major price indexes. It provides details about several...

For much of the last four decades, leading analysts have used large Keynesian macroeconomic models to prepare macroeconomic forecasts. More recently, VAR models have become a popular alternative. Despite their usefulness in preparing unconditional forecasts, VAR models are unsuitable for policy...

Emerging market economies typically exhibit a procyclical fiscal policy: public expenditures rise (fall) in economic expansions (recessions), whereas tax rates rise (fall) in bad (good) times. Additionally, the business cycle of these economies is characterized by countercyclical default risk....

Macroeconomics is moving toward a New Neoclassical Synthesis, which like the synthesis of the 1960s melds Classical with Keynesian ideas. This paper describes the key features of the new synthesis and its implications for the role of monetary policy. We find that the New Neoclassical Synthesis...

What is the source of interest rate volatility? Why do low interest rates precede business cycle booms? Most observers tend to assume that monetary policy is largely responsible for it. Indeed, a standard real business cycle model delivers rather small fluctuations in real interest rates. Here,...