Economics Roundtable

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke seemed to indicate last week that more purchases of non-Treasury assets are a prominent option for the Fed if the economy continues to flag. While the Fed has little experience in these purchases, he said, selling off these assets when necessary to quell inflation should ...

New survey research indicates that recent efforts to stimulate the economy with tax rebates have been remarkably inefficient. The 2008 rebate, distributed in a lump sum check, led only 25 percent of recipients to increase spending, according to this paper. Partly because of evidence that the 2008 rebate didn't ...

Ken Rogoff thinks productivity growth and supply-side policy have been neglected in the discussion of how to avoid a Japan-style lost decade. Other than keeping taxes low and efficient, what policies would boost productivity? Has America's high productivity been mostly accidental? Which productivity-enhancing policies have purposefully given American an ...

In this draft of a paper to be published by the Brookings Institution on Aug. 15, the author argues that gross national income has been a better indicator of business cycle activity than GDP. Should economists elevate the importance of this number in the their cycle dating?

At a delicate moment for the economic recovery, and faced with the choice of when to start significant deficit reduction, Congress must soon decide what to do about the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Which possible outcome is, on balance, the best for the economic situation? A long-term ...

Attention is turning to the $4 trillion in short-term debt that the Fed and European central banks will need to refinance in the next year and half (with another $1 trillion from elsewhere). See the Wall Street Journal's accounting here and the New York Times' deeper dive here. ...

Is it a pause or a stall? Sift the macroeconomic data for the near-term course of the recovery. How do you view the latest jobs report and the recent months on job creation? What about the course of manufacturing output and the turnaround in retail sales? Then, ...

President Obama plans at least a short-term renewal of the Bush income tax rates for middle- and lower-income families this fall, while letting rates expire for families earning more than $250,000 a year. According to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office, current rates are steeply progressive -- ...

In the financial crisis and the Great Recession, some in the economic profession see reasons to question efficient markets, the law of one price and the proper role of mathematical modeling. Are there any core economic ideas that you have re-examined, and any suggestion of some that should be? ...

The president has called for $50 billion in emergency aid to states facing big spending cuts. He has suggested that the money might come from freezing non-security discretionary spending for three years, and thus be revenue-neutral. Does this balancing out of spending cuts and spending increases constitute stimulus, or otherwise ...