The goals of the annual NBER Macroeconomics Conference are to present, extend, and apply frontier work in macroeconomics and to stimulate work by macroeconomists in policy issues. Each paper in the Annual is followed by comments and discussion. The goals of the annual NBER Macroeconomics Conference are to present, extend, and apply frontier work in macroeconomics and to stimulate work by macroeconomists in policy issues. Each paper in the Annual is followed by comments and discussion.
Our nation began with the simple phrase, “We the People.” But who were and are “We”? Who were we in 1776, in 1865, or 1968, and is there any continuity in character between the we of those years and the nearly 300 million people living in the radically different America of today? With Made in America, Claude S. Fischer draws on decades of historical, psychological, and social research to answer that question by tracking the evolution of American character and culture over three centuries. He explodes myths—such as that contemporary Americans are more mobile and less religious than their ancestors, or that they are more focused on money and consumption—and reveals instead how greater security and wealth have only reinforced the independence, egalitarianism, and commitment to community that characterized our people from the earliest years. Skillfully drawing on personal stories of representative Americans, Fischer shows that affluence and social progress have allowed more people to participate fully in cultural and political life, thus broadening the category of “American” —yet at the same time what it means to be an American has retained surprising continuity with much earlier notions of American character. Firmly in the vein of such classics as The Lonely Crowd and Habits of the Heart—yet challenging many of their conclusions—Made in America takes readers beyond the simplicity of headlines and the actions of elites to show us the lives, aspirations, and emotions of ordinary Americans, from the settling of the colonies to the settling of the suburbs.
We argue that the U.S. personal saving rate’s long stability (from the 1960s through the early 1980s), subsequent steady decline (1980s - 2007), and recent substantial increase (2008 - 2011) can all be interpreted using a parsimonious ‘buffer stock’ model of optimal consumption in the presence of labor income uncertainty and credit constraints. Saving in the model is affected by the gap between ‘target’ and actual wealth, with the target wealth determined by credit conditions and uncertainty. An estimated structural version of the model suggests that increased credit availability accounts for most of the saving rate’s long-term decline, while fluctuations in net wealth and uncertainty capture the bulk of the business-cycle variation.
Dornbusch, Fischer, and Startz has been a long-standing, leading intermediate macroeconomic theory text since its introduction in 1978. This revision retains most of the text's traditional features, including a middle-of-the-road approach and very current research, while updating and simplifying the exposition. A balanced approach explains both the potential and limitations of economic policy. Macroeconomics employs a model-based approach to macroeconomic analysis and demonstrates how various models are connected with the goal of giving students the capacity to analyze current economic issues in the context of an economic frame of reference. The only pre-requisite continues to be principles of economics.
For almost thirty years, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) has provided academic and business economists, government officials, and members of the financial and business communities with timely research of current economic issues. Contents include: Articles GEORGE A. AKERLOF, ANDREW K. ROSE, JANET L. YELLEN, and HELGA HESSENIUS East Germany in from the Cold: The Economic Aftermath of Currency Union ROBERT J. BARRO and XAVIER SALA-I-MARTIN Convergence across States and Regions BARRY BOSWORTH, GARY BURTLESS, and JOHN SABELHAUS The Decline in Saving: Some Microeconomic Evidence ALLEN B. FRANKEL and JOHN D. MONTGOMERY Financial Structure: An International Perspective Report ROBERT Z. LAWRENCE Efficient or Exclusionist? The Import Behavior of Japanese Corporate Groups
Wann und warum sparen private Haushalte? Sahra Wagenknecht untersucht in ihrer Dissertation den Zusammenhang von Sparentscheidungen und Grundbedürfnissen in Deutschland und den USA von den 1950er-Jahren bis heute. Ihre zentrale Hypothese lautet, dass der Einkommensanteil der Ausgaben zur Befriedigung von Grundbedürfnissen die entscheidende Erklärungsvariable des individuellen Sparverhaltens darstellt. In Abgrenzung zur Lebenszyklus- bzw. Permanenten Einkommenshypothese (LCPIH) kann Wagenknecht zeigen, dass die individuelle Sparquote entscheidend vom langfristigen Einkommen abhängt. Die Arbeit weist für einen Zeitraum von über 50 Jahren nach, dass sich auch auf volkswirtschaftlicher Ebene die Veränderung der privaten Sparquote durch den "necessity share" erklären lässt. Das vorgelegte Modell liefert zudem eine Erklärung, weshalb die private Sparquote bei steigender Einkommensungleichheit in Volkswirtschaften mit dereguliertem Kreditmarkt sinkt, während sie bei restriktiven Kreditmärkten steigt.
Published twice a year, BPEA offers authoritative, in-depth research on economic development for economists, government officials, and members of the financial and business communities. For nearly thirty years, BPEA has been an indispensable source for scholars and policymakers seeking objective analysis of major macroeconomic issues. " Social Security Reform and National Saving in an Era of Budget Surpluses" by Douglas W. Elmendorf and Jeffrey B. Liebman " E-Capital: The Link between the Stock Market and the Labor Market in the 1990s" by Robert E. Hall " Real Estate and the Macroeconomy" by Karl E. Case " The Economic Consequences of Disappearing Government Debt" by Vincent Reinhart and Brian Sack " Financial Market Implications of the Federal Debt Paydown" by Michael J. Fleming " Tax Smoothing Implications of the Federal Debt Paydown" by George J. Hall and Stefan Krieger
