New Releases by Robert J. Gordon

This paper studies the dynamic behavior of changes in productivity, wages, and prices. Results are based on a new data set that allows a consistent analysis of the aggregate economy, the manufacturing sector, and the nonmanufacturing sector. Results are presented for the U. S., Japan, and an aggregate called "Europe" consisting of eleven European economies. The primary theme of the paper is that differences between Europe and the U. S. have been substantially exaggerated in recent work. Europe has neither greater nominal wage flexibility nor more rigid real wages than the U. S. Evidence that the U. S. exhibits more nominal rigidity is confined to manufacturing, while the U. S. aggregate and nonmanufacturing sectors display as much nominal wage flexibility as Europe, and similar "output sacrifice ratios" as well. These results undermine the case frequently made against demand expansion in Europe on the ground that such a demand expansion would cause only extra inflation with no bonus of extra output as a result of a uniquely vertical European aggregate supply curve. The analysis of real wages also yields new results. A consistent treatment of the income of the self-employed almost completely eliminates the secular uptrend in previously developed wage gap indexes for Japan and Europe between the 1960s and 1980s. If anything real wages in Europe and Japan were too flexible rather than too rigid, in the sense that much of the increase in wage gap indexes in Europe during 1968-70 and in Japan in 1973-74 can be interpreted as autonomous wage push. The component of increases in wage gap indexes to be attributed to a failure of real wages to respond to the post-1972 productivity growth slowdown is relatively minor. The paper''s analysis of productivity change confirms the real-wage elasticity of labor input emphasized previously, but shows that the response of productivity to changes in the real wage, and to cyclical output fluctuations, is roughly the same the U, S., Japan, and Europe. The cyclical an

Contributions are made by this paper in three areas, methodological, data creation, and empirical. The methodological section finds that, while structural model building exercises may be useful in suggesting lists of variables that may play an explanatory role in investment equations, they generally achieve identification of structural parameters only by imposing arbitrary and unbelievable simplifying assumptions and exclusion restrictions.The paper advocates a hybrid methodology combining guidance from traditional structural models on the choice and form of explanatory variables to be included, with estimation in a reduced-form format that introduces all explanatory variables and the lagged dependent variable with the same number of unconstrained lag coefficients. The second contribution is the use of a new set of quarterly data for major expenditure categories of GNP extending back to 1919. The data file also contains quarterly data back to 1919 for other variables, including the capital stock, interest rates, the cost of capital including tax incentive effects, a proxy for Tobin''s "Q", and the real money supply.The empirical results support the view that there are two basic impulses in the business cycle, real and financial.The real impulse appears in our statistical evidence as an autonomous innovation to investment in structures. We interpret these structures innovations as due in turn to changes in the rate of population growth, episodes of speculation and overbuilding, and Schumpeterian waves of innovation.The financial impulse works through the effect on investment of changes in the money supply, as well as the real interest rate (in the case of postwar investment in durable equipment).There is a strong role for the money supply as a determinant of investment behavior, relative to such other factors as the user cost of capital or Tobin''s "Q". The role of the money supply is interpreted as primarily reflecting the banking contraction of 1929-33 and the episodes of credit crunches and di

In recent decades the American economy has experienced the worst peace-time inflation in its history and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. These circumstances have prompted renewed interest in the concept of business cycles, which Joseph Schumpeter suggested are "like the beat of the heart, of the essence of the organism that displays them." In The American Business Cycle, some of the most prominent macroeconomics in the United States focuses on the questions, To what extent are business cycles propelled by external shocks? How have post-1946 cycles differed from earlier cycles? And, what are the major factors that contribute to business cycles? They extend their investigation in some areas as far back as 1875 to afford a deeper understanding of both economic history and the most recent economic fluctuations. Seven papers address specific aspects of economic activity: consumption, investment, inventory change, fiscal policy, monetary behavior, open economy, and the labor market. Five papers focus on aggregate economic activity. In a number of cases, the papers present findings that challenge widely accepted models and assumptions. In addition to its substantive findings, The American Business Cycle includes an appendix containing both the first published history of the NBER business-cycle dating chronology and many previously unpublished historical data series.

This paper reviews the main issues that supply shocks pose for the conduct of monetary policy. A simple version of the Gordon-Phelps model shows that the necessary condition for actual real GNP to be maintained at its equilibrium level in the wake of a supply shock is for the change innominal GNP to exceed the change in the nominal wage by the change in the income share of the raw material in GNP. The required "wedge" between nominal GNP and wage growth can be accomplished by any combination of monetary accommodation and nominal wage flexibility. Without this combination a "macroeconomic externality" occurs, with real CNP falling below its equilibrium level. The obstacles to monetary accommodation are examined in terms of a taxonomic wage adjustment equation that allows for differing responses to current inflation, lagged inflation, and lagged wage change. Monetary accommodation is infeasible when there is full indexation to current inflation and creates a permanent acceleration of inflation following a one-time permanent shock when there is indexation to lagged inflation. With "forward-looking" expectation formation in the sense of Taylor, a supply shock is likely to cause changes in parameters of the wage adjustment equation as workers attempt to avoid the macroeconomic externality. The final section of the paper discusses doctrinal debates that originated in part from the empirical failures of earlier Phillips curves that neglected supply shocks

This paper reviews the leading ideas that have emerged within two paradigms of price adjustment. Neither, it appears, provides a satisfactory theoretical scheme when taken in isolation. This paper concludes that an attempt to merge the more convincing elements of each is needed, and some suggestions for such a merger are put forward.

This paper rejects the proposition that there is only a single interesting question to ask about the decade of the 1930s. It is concerned not only with the role of money in the 1929-33 contraction but also with the relative role of monetary and nonmonetary factors in the recession of 1937-38 and subsequent recovery and, in addition, with the division of nominal income change between prices and real output. New empirical evidence bearing on each of these issues is provided The results suggest that both extreme monetarist and nonmonetarist interpretations of the decade of the l930s are unsatisfactory and leave interesting features of the data unexplained. Arguing against acceptance of an extreme monetarist interpretation are (1) the inability of changes in the money supply alone to explain the severity of the initial collapse in income between 1929 and the fall of 1931, (2) the steady weakening of the correlation between changes in nominal income and money as the 1930s progressed, (3) the failure of monetary factors to explain the nature and timing of the 1938-41 recovery, and (4) the apparent absence of any tendency for the mechanism of price flexibility to provide strong self-correcting forces as required by an approach that stresses monetary rules and opposes policy activism. Arguing against acceptance of an extreme nonmonetarist interpretation are (1) the close association between the collapse in income and the lagged effect of monetary changes after the fall of 1931, (2) the milder contraction and earlier recoveries associated with the more expansive monetary policies pursued in Europe, (3) the close association between money and income in the 1937-38 recession, and (4) the failure of the price change data to adhere to the expectational Phillips curve approach imbedded in many postwar econometric models constructed by nonmonetarists

This paper develops the theory of price measurement when quality change is "nonproportional", yielding increases in the user value of a given product in a different proportion than the increase in production cost associated with the quality improvement. The theoretical section demonstrates that "nonproportional" quality change is treated consistently by properly defined input and output price indexes; that both types of indexes should he based on quality adjustments that use the criterion of user value rather than production cost; and that if improvements in energy efficiency are embodied in a good by its manufacturer, the prices of new models should be adjusted for the user value of these cost savings. The proposed approach is applied in a case study of the commercial aircraft industry. In contrast to the official price index for aircraft that rises at a 2.5 percent annual rate between 1957 and 1972,a new index is developed that declines at a 7.1 percent annual rate over the same period. The new index implies that output and productivity in the aircraft industry grew much faster than previously believed between 1957 and1972,while total factor productivity in the airline industry grew much less rapidly. The proposed quality adjustments for individual aircraft types are corroborated by price ratios observed in the used aircraft market.

A review was conducted of available models which relate ozone concentrations to VOC and NOx emissions. The city-specific version of the Empirical Kinetic Modeling Approach (EKMA) was recommended as the most appropriate model for New England with reasonable input and computer requirements. This model was applied to Bridgeport-New Haven, CT; Providence, RI; Boston, MA; Springfield, MA; and Worcester, MA to compute VOC emission reductions necessary to achieve current and future Federal Oxidant Standards. The ozone design values and transported ozone values were selected to reflect the maximum requirement for VOC emission reduction. All O3 monitoring data for Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island were adjusted to a common basis by taking into account EPA calibration audits and changes in calibration procedures.

The most striking aspects of recent U.S. wage and price behavior are the small year-to-year variations in the rate of change of wages, the modest 1977-79 acceleration in the rate of change of both wages and the consumption deflator net of food and energy, and an unprecedented gap between the inflation rates recorded by the CPI and personal consumption deflator. A small and simple econometric model is used to forecast the consequences of various policies for the future growth of the monetary base. No policy will be able to prevent an acceleration in the growth rate of the personal consumption deflator net of food and energy from its recent 7 percent track to 8 percent or above in the first half of 1980. The gross personal consumption deflator will climb even faster, with the difference depending on the behavior of oil and food prices. Thereafter, the effect of slack labor markets will begin to allow inflation net of food and energy to decelerate substantially. A 6 percent rule for the monetary base is too conservative and causes the unemployment rate to rise to 8.5 percent in 1982. An 8 percent rule for the base is preferable, allows the unemployment rate to begin to fall after late 1981, and still achieves a deceleration of inflation net of food and energy from 8 percent in mid-1980 to 6 percent in 1983. Thereafter, the growth of the base should be slowed down to keep the economy from overshooting again

Monograph on race relations, ethnic factors and labour relations of African migrant workers in the work environment and living conditions of a mining compound in Namibia - includes a bibliography pp. 269 to 276, diagrams, illustrations, references and statistical tables.