Empirical and theoretical aspects of inventory behavior became hot topics in the 1950s and early 1960s. No one seemed to notice the tension that was developing between the emerging macroeconomic and microeconomic views of inventories. Macroeconomists routinely thought of inventories as a...

Academic writing about monetary policy has been useful to practical central bankers, but more of (certain aspects of) the economists' way of thinking could profitably be imported. On the other hand, academics could improve their analysis, and make it more useful to policymakers, if they would...

The rescue of the US automobile industry amid the 2008-2009 recession and financial crisis was a consequential, controversial, and difficult decision made at a fraught moment for the US economy. Both of us were involved in the decision process at the time, but since have moved back to academia....

The paper investigates whether there is a connection between poverty or low education and terrorism. We review evidence on hate crimes, which are closely related to terrorism; the occurrence of hate crimes is largely independent of economic conditions. We analyze data on support for attacks...

We consider the recently proposed "income-contingent loan" (ICL), in which Congress would establish a national trust fund from which students could borrow money to finance the cost of attending college; students would repay these loans by contributing a fixed proportion of their subsequent income...

This paper reviews and interprets the literature on the effects of school resources on students' eventual earnings and educational attainment. In addition, new evidence is presented on the impact of the great disparity in school resources between black and white students in North and South...

Instrumental variables was first used in the 1920s to estimate supply and demand elasticities and later to correct for measurement error in single equation models. Recently, instrumental variables have been widely used to reduce bias from omitted variables in estimates of causal relationships....

To commemorate the new millennium and 50 issues of JEP, we have commissioned a series of essays in three broad areas. The first set of papers in this issue look back at key developments in the economy and economic thinking. In a second group of articles, we asked for predictions about the future...

Direct reports of subjective well-being may have a useful role in the measurement of consumer preferences and social welfare, if they can be done in a credible way. Can well-being be measured by a subjective survey, even approximately? In this paper, we discuss research on how individuals'...