Has the United States allowed its public infrastructure to decline? More importantly, has such a decline lowered the nation’s productivity? John A. Tatom describes and evaluates the currently popular view that the answer to these questions is yes. Supporters of this view advocate sharp increases in federal government spending on infrastructure, with the expectation of a boost in the productivity of the nation’s business sector.
The behavior of consumer credit has attracted considerable attention during the last 10 years. After growing rapidly in the mid-1980s, consumer installment credit declined in many quarters during 1991 and 1992. Changes in consumption expenditures, however, may not fully explain the wide fluctuations in the growth of consumer credit.
Gross flows—the creation and destruction of specific jobs or the movement of workers into and out of employment—are the immediate outcomes of labor market processes. Firms create and destroy jobs. Workers enter and leave employment.
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