The authors examine alternative views about monetary policy within the Federal Reserve System from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, highlighting the views of Darryl Francis, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1966 to 1975. In contrast to most of his Fed colleagues, Francis argued that monetary policy should concentrate on halting inflation.
The author estimates the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the geographic pattern of North American trade. Specifically, he looks at the effects of NAFTA on aggregate trade flows between subnational regions within North America and between North American regions and the non-NAFTA world.
The authors examine whether Federal Reserve settlement effects have also appeared in the overnight London interbank offer rate (LIBOR) since the Federal Reserve removed the reserve requirements on Eurocurrency liabilities. They first explain why this is an important issue and describe the characteristics of these settlement effects.
Taking as given that the NBER correctly identifies the dates of business cycle turning points, the authors evaluate the real-time performance of the Markov-switching model in replicating the NBER’s business cycle dates. They apply the model to two datasets: growth in quarterly real gross domestic product (GDP) and growth in monthly economywide employment.
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