Broadly defined, macroeconomic forecasting is alive and well. Nonstructural forecasting which is based largely on reduced-form correlations, has always been well and continues toquot; improve. Structural forecasting, which aligns itself with economic theory and hence rises andquot; falls with...

This paper summarizes the results of an empirical study of alternative international monetary arrangements using a multicountry, rational expectations, econometric model of the G-7 countries; Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The model is fit to...

This paper employs MIMIC, an applied general equilibrium model of the Dutch economy, to explore various tax cuts aimed at combating unemployment and raising labor supply. MIMIC combines modern labor-market theories, a firm empirical foundation detailed description of Dutch labor-market...

How likely is trade liberalization to produce efficiency gains in the presence of imperfect competition, scale economies, and higher-than-average wages in the modern sectors -- all common features of developing economies? These features create a potential conflict to the extent that traditional...

This paper shows that the level of deforestation in Indonesia is positively related to the degree of ethnic fractionalization at the district level. To identify a casual relation we exploit the exogenous timing of variations in the level of ethnic heterogeneity due to the creation of new...

Because of difficulties measuring pollution, many prior papers suggest a subsidy to some observable method of reducing pollution. We take three papers from the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management as examples, and we extend them to make an additional important point. In each case,...

We compare the more common physician compensation method of fee-for-service to the less common payment-for-outcomes method. This paper combines an investigation of the theoretical properties of both of these payment regimes with a unique data set from rural Cameroon in which patients can choose...

In several countries temporary terms of trade improvements have led to a deterioration of the current account. Furthermore, many of these countries failed to attain greater post-boom growth rates. The point we make is that the structure of the fiscal process is critical in determining outcomes....

Macroeconomists have largely converged on method, model design, reduced-form shocks, and principles of policy advice. Our main disagreements today are about implementing the methodology. Some think New Keynesian models are ready to be used for quarter-to-quarter quantitative policy advice; we do...

We describe some of the main features of the recent vintage macroeconomic models used for monetary policy evaluation. We point to some of the key differences with respect to the earlier generation of macro models, and highlight the insights for policy that these new frameworks have to offer. Our...