Studies in Business-cycle Theory


Book Description

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.




Business Cycles


Book Description

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.




Business Cycles


Book Description

During our lifetime we experience any number of business cycle crises which undermine our confidence and lead many to their ruin. We also experience the ‘happy days’ when our faith in the future becomes almost limitless, and when we forget that tides always turn again. So how can we better understand and predict these cycles? To answer these questions Lars Tvede takes us through a story that moves back in time to the Scottish gambler and financial genius, John Law, and then on to the distracted Adam Smith, the stockbroker Ricardo, the investment banker Thornton, the extrovert Schumpeter, the speculator Gould and many others to trace the theory and reality of business cycles, as it has evolved over 300 years. Gradually we reach the computer jugglers of the modern day who, with giant networks of equations, try to solve the same questions that have attracted the attention of classical economists throughout the centuries. Lars Tvede concludes this historical journey with a summary of what the core of the problem is and how modern understanding of business cycles can be used to forecast economic fluctuations. The final sections of the book provide detailed studies and explanations to of how stocks, bonds, hedge funds, private equity funds, gold, diamonds, exchange rates, real estate, commodities, art and collectibles, and numerous sub-sectors of some of these markets each behave over different categories of business cycles.




Frontiers of Business Cycle Research


Book Description

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




Business Cycle Theory


Book Description

"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.




Recessions and Depressions


Book Description

The economy of any nation is an intricate web of relationships among the factors determining supply and demand--and everything that affects them, from inflation to taxes to the stock market. The study of business cycles attempts to explain why economies grow and contract, experiencing periods of prosperity and pain. Consistent with the popular conception of economics as the dismal science, economists secretly long for recessions (periods of negative growth) and depressions (severe contractions), not because they enjoy their devastating impact on human welfare, but because these downturns serve as excellent laboratories for observing what happens when markets break down. Despite over two centuries of debate, no one has yet definitively unlocked the secrets of economic downturns and how they might be prevented. In Recessions and Depressions Todd Knoop traces the evolution of business cycle theory, from the classical model, which preceded the Great Depression, through the ground-breaking ideas of John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and their followers. He examines the strengths and limitations of each approach, in terms of explaining the impact of such factors as government policy, money supply, labor productivity, and wages. In the process, he presents an accessible introduction to what makes the economy tick, and offers new insights into understanding such historic events as the Great Depression, as well as more recent ones, such as the Asian meltdown in the 1990s, the financial crises in Latin America, and the U.S. recession of 2001, from which the United States is still recovering. Knoop reminds us that economists' track record in forecasting business cycles leaves much to be desired, and the quest to fully understand what causes economic downturns--and their effects on individuals and families--continues.







Business Cycles: Theories, Evidence and Analysis


Book Description

The new classical revolution seems to have transformed macroeconomics into the theory of economic fluctuations. It is, in a sense, a return to the origins of macroeconomics as a discipline as fashioned by Hayek, Keynes and Lindahl. But the scope has shifted in the intervening five decades and more. It is this new scope - and the new tools that forge its expansion - that are surveyed and analysed in this volume.




Business cycle theory as a basis for economic policy


Book Description

This book aims to start a debate on the relationship between economic theory – and more precisely business cycle theory – and economic policy, emphasising the diversity of views on economic policy which characterised older periods, in contrast to the homogeneity of the analysis and diagnosis provided by current business cycles developments. Since the 1970s, economic theorists excluding any economic policy interventions and favouring strictly supply-side economic policies have gained a growing influence. The development of Equilibrium Business Cycles theories coincides with the collapse, at least in academic circles, of the Keynesian consensus favouring stabilization policies. The alternative approach which emerged was based on an a priori hypothesis about the stability of the economy – or at least on its remarkable ability to stabilize itself. The direct consequence of this approach is that any stabilization objective for economic policy is not only misguided but also inefficient. There are many reasons why Keynesian policies ceased to be dominant in theoretical circles, but the most helpful circumstances for the rapid propagation of a new revolutionary theory is certainly the existence of an established orthodoxy, clearly inconsistent with the most salient facts of reality. This book offers a sample of different theoretical approaches to business cycles, examining their respective views on economic policy with the objective of understanding business cycles that have been lost, and identifying those views which explain fluctuations and the way we conceive economic policy. This book was originally published as a special issue of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.




Econometric Business Cycle Research


Book Description

Econometric Business Cycle Research deals with econometric business cycle research (EBCR), a term introduced by the Nobel-laureate Jan Tinbergen for his econometric method of testing (economic) business cycle theories. EBCR combines economic theory and measurement in the study of business cycles, i.e., ups and downs in overall economic activity. We assess four methods of EBCR: business cycle indicators, simultaneous equations models, vector autoregressive systems and real business indicators. After a sketch of the history of the methods, we investigate whether the methods meet the goals of EBCR: the three traditional ones, description, forecasting and policy evaluation, and the one Tinbergen introduced, the implementation|testing of business cycles. The first three EBCR methods are illustrated for the Netherlands, a typical example of a small, open economy. The main conclusion of the book is that simultaneous equation models are the best vehicle for EBCR, if all its goals are to be attained simultaneously. This conclusion is based on a fairly detailed assessment of the methods and is not over-turned in the empirical illustrations. The main conclusion does not imply the end of other EBCR methods. Not all goals have to be met with a single vehicle, other methods might serve the purpose equally well - or even better. For example, if one is interested in business cycle forecasts, one might prefer a business cycle indicator or vector autoregressive system. A second conclusion is that many ideas/concepts that play an important role in current discussions about econometric methodology in general and EBCR in particular, were put forward in the 1930s and 1940s. A third conclusion is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to compare the outcomes of RBC models to outcomes of the other three methods, because RBC modellers are not interested in modelling business cycles on an observation-per-observation basis. A more general conclusion in this respect is that methods should adopt the same concept of business cycles to make them comparable.