Studies In The Theory Of Business Cycles

This volume presents the most complete collection available of the work of Victor Zarnowitz, a leader in the study of business cycles, growth, inflation, and forecasting.. With characteristic insight, Zarnowitz examines theories of the business cycle, including Keynesian and monetary theories and more recent rational expectation and real business cycle theories. He also measures trends and cycles in economic activity; evaluates the performance of leading indicators and their composite measures; surveys forecasting tools and performance of business and academic economists; discusses historical changes in the nature and sources of business cycles; and analyzes how successfully forecasting firms and economists predict such key economic variables as interest rates and inflation.

An academic colleague has called Lucas "the dominant figure in Americanmacroeconomics." And another refers to this group of 14 essays, nearly all of which were firstpublished during the 1970s, as the most influential contribution to macroeconomics in thatdecade.

This introduction to modern business cycle theory uses a neoclassical growth framework to study the economic fluctuations associated with the business cycle. Presenting advances in dynamic economic theory and computational methods, it applies concepts to t

"Is the business cycle obsolete?" This often cited title of a book edited by Bronfenbren ner with the implicit affirmation of the question reflected the attitude of mainstream macroeconomics in the Sixties regarding the empirical relevance of cyclic motions of an economy. The successful income policies, theoretically grounded in Keynesian macroec onomics, seemed to have eased or even abolished the fluctuations in West,ern economies which motivated studies of many classical and neoclassical economists for more than 100 years. The reasoning behind the conviction that business cycles would increasingly become irrelevant was rather simple: if an economy fluctuates for whatever reason, then it is almost always possible to neutralize these cyclic motions by means of anti-cyclic demand policies. From the 1950's until the mid-Sixties business cycle theory had often been consid ered either as an appendix to growth theory or as an academic exercise in dynamical economics. The common business cycle models were essentially multiplier-accelerator models whose sensitive dependence on parameter values (in order to be called busi ness cycle models) suggested a rather improbable occurrence of continuing oscillations. The obvious success in compensating business cycles in those days prevented intensive concern with the occurrence of cycles. Rather, business cycle theory turned into sta bilization theory which investigated theoretical possibilities of stabilizing a fluctuating economy. Many macroeconomic textbooks appeared in the Sixties which consequently identified business cycle theory with inquiries on the possibilities to stabilize economies 2 Introduction by means of active fiscal or monetary policies.

This volume, originally published in 1966, contains essays from the 1930s and is valuable not only in the context of the history of thought. It provides an excellent introduction to the general theory of employment, interest and money and reflect the most essential features of Kalecki’s theory of the business cycle.

This textbook provides a comprehensive and up to date review of the rapidly expanding business cycle literature. It covers three key strands of the theory which have dominated recent literature in the subject: equilibrium (monetary and real) business cycles, nonlinear business, cycle models and political business cycle theories. Business Cycles is designed for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of macroeconomics and monetary theory and policy and academic economists wishing to keep abreast of the substantial recent developments in this field.