The Econometrics Of Price Determinitation Conference October 30 31 1970

Models of the American economy exist in government, research institutes, universities, and private corporations. Given the proliferation, it is wise to take stock because these models come from diverse sources and describe different conditions from alternative points of view. They could be saying different things about the economy. The high-level comparative studies in this volume, gathered from several issues of the International Economic Review, with a substantive introduction and the addition of more comparative material, evaluate the performance of eleven models of the American economy: the Wharton Mark Ill Model; Brookings Model; Hickman-Coen Annual Model; Liu-Hwa Monthly Model; Data Resources, Inc. (DRI) Model; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Model; Michigan Quarterly Econometric (MOEM) Model; Wharton Annual and Industry Model; Anticipation Version of the Wharton Mark Ill Model/Fair Model; U.S. Department of Commerce (BEA) Model. Each of the proprietors or builders of these models describes his own system in his own words. These studies come closer than ever before to standardizing model operations for testing purposes. Some of the models are monthly, while others are annual. but the quarterly unit of time is the most frequent. Some are demand oriented, others are supply oriented, and focus on the input-output sectors of the economy. Some use only observed. objective data; others use subjective. anticipatory data. Both large and small models are included. In spite of the diversity, the contributors have cooperated to trace the differences between their models to root causes and to report jointly the results of their research. There are also some general papers that look at model performance from outside the CEME group.

Robert Lucas is one of the outstanding monetary theorists of the past hundred years. Along with Knut Wicksell, Irving Fisher, John Maynard Keynes, James Tobin, and Milton Friedman (his teacher), Lucas revolutionized our understanding of how money interacts with the real economy of production, consumption, and exchange. Lucas’s contributions are both methodological and substantive. Methodologically, he developed dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium models to analyze economic decision-makers operating through time in a complex, probabilistic environment. Substantively, he incorporated the quantity theory of money into these models and derived its implications for money growth, inflation, and interest rates in the long run. He also showed the different effects of anticipated and unanticipated changes in the stock of money on economic fluctuations, and helped to demonstrate that there was not a long-run trade-off between unemployment and inflation (the Phillips curve) that policy-makers could exploit. The twenty-one papers collected in this volume fall primarily into three categories: core monetary theory and public finance, asset pricing, and the real effects of monetary instability. Published between 1972 and 2007, they will inspire students and researchers who want to study the work of a master of economic modeling and to advance economics as a pure and applied science.

This fourth volume in the series of Nobel laureate James Tobin's classic papers represents his work since 1980. This fourth volume in the series of Nobel laureate James Tobin's classic papers represents his work since 1980. Both national and international views are intermingled among the 36 chapters on macroeconomics and fiscal policy, savings, stabilization policy, international coordination of macroeconomic policy, monetary policy, and exchange rates. Several tributes to colleagues--including Walter Heller and Seymour Harris--round out the collection.

Second in a two-volume study of the Nobel Prize winner’s long career: “Nelson knows more about Milton Friedman’s economics than anyone else alive.” —Business Economics This study is the first to distill Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman’s vast body of writings into an authoritative account of his research, his policy views, and his interventions in public debate. With this ambitious new work, Edward Nelson closes the gap: Milton Friedman and Economic Debate in the United States is the defining narrative on the famed economist, the first to grapple comprehensively with Friedman’s research output, economic framework, and legacy. This two-volume account provides a foundational introduction to Friedman’s role in several major economic debates that took place in the United States between 1932 and 1972. This second volume covers the years between 1960 and 1972—years that saw the publication of Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s Monetary History of the United States. The book also covers Friedman’s involvement in a number of debates in the 1960s and 1970s, on topics such as unemployment, inflation, consumer protection, and the environment. As a fellow monetary economist, Nelson writes from a unique vantage point, drawing on both his own expertise in monetary analysis and his deep familiarity with Friedman’s writings. Using extensive documentation, the book weaves together Friedman’s research contributions and his engagement in public debate, providing an unparalleled analysis of Friedman’s views on the economic developments of his day. “No previous biographer has Nelson’s deep and sophisticated understanding of monetary economics.” —Economic History

Debunking Economics exposes what many non-economists may have suspected and a minority of economists have long known: that economic theory is not only unpalatable, but also plain wrong. When the original Debunking was published back in 2001, the market economy seemed invincible, and conventional 'neoclassical' economic theory basked in the limelight. Steve Keen argued that economists deserved none of the credit for the economy's performance, and that 'the false confidence it has engendered in the stability of the market economy has encouraged policy-makers to dismantle some of the institutions which initially evolved to try to keep its instability within limits'. That instability exploded with the devastating financial crisis of 2007, and now haunts the global economy with the prospect of another Depression. In this radically updated and greatly expanded new edition, Keen builds on his scathing critique of conventional economic theory whilst explaining what mainstream economists cannot: why the crisis occurred, why it is proving to be intractable, and what needs to be done to end it. Essential for anyone who has ever doubted the advice or reasoning of economists, Debunking Economics provides a signpost to a better future.

First in a two-volume study of Friedman’s long career: “No previous biographer has Nelson’s deep and sophisticated understanding of monetary economics.” —Economic History This study is the first to distill Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman’s vast body of writings into an authoritative account of his research, his policy views, and his interventions in public debate. With this ambitious new work, Edward Nelson closes the gap: Milton Friedman and Economic Debate in the United States is the defining narrative on the famed economist, the first to grapple comprehensively with Friedman’s research output, economic framework, and legacy. This two-volume account provides a foundational introduction to Friedman’s role in several major economic debates that took place in the United States between 1932 and 1972. This first volume in the two-volume account takes the story through 1960, covering the period in which Friedman began and developed his research on monetary policy. It traces Friedman’s thinking from his professional beginnings in the 1930s as a combative young microeconomist, to his wartime years on the staff of the US Treasury, and his emergence in the postwar period as a leading proponent of monetary policy. As a fellow monetary economist, Nelson writes from a unique vantage point, drawing on both his own expertise in monetary analysis and his deep familiarity with Friedman’s writings. Using extensive documentation, the book weaves together Friedman’s research contributions and his engagement in public debate, providing an unparalleled analysis of Friedman’s views on the economic developments of his day. “Magisterial . . . For anyone wanting to understand the ideas that Friedman generated over his research career, this book is, and will remain for some time, the essential guide.” —Financial World

In the past fifteen years, inflation has been conquered by many advanced countries. History reveals, however, that it has been conquered before and returned. In The Conquest of American Inflation, Thomas J. Sargent presents a groundbreaking analysis of the rise and fall of U.S. inflation after 1960. He examines two broad explanations for the behavior of inflation and unemployment in this period: the natural-rate hypothesis joined to the Lucas critique and a more traditional econometric policy evaluation modified to include adaptive expectations and learning. His purpose is not only to determine which is the better account, but also to codify for the benefit of the next generation the economic forces that cause inflation. Sargent begins with an explanation of how American policymakers increased inflation in the early 1960s by following erroneous assumptions about the exploitability of the Phillips curve--the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. In subsequent chapters, he connects a sequence of ideas--self-confirming equilibria, least-squares and other adaptive or recursive learning algorithms, convergence of least-squares learners with self-confirming equilibria, and recurrent dynamics along escape routes from self-confirming equilibria. Sargent synthesizes results from macroeconomics, game theory, control theory, and other fields to extend both adaptive expectations and rational expectations theory, and he compellingly describes postwar inflation in terms of drifting coefficients. He interprets his results in favor of adaptive expectations as the relevant mechanism affecting inflation policy. Providing an original methodological link between theoretical and policy economics, this book will engender much debate and become an indispensable text for academics, graduate students, and professional economists.