David W. Wilcox

Reforming the Defined-Benefit Pension System (2006)

Wilcox, David W.

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity - 2006, 1

A Quantitative Exploration of the Opportunistic Approach to Disinflation (1997)

Athanasios Orphanides, David H. Small, Volker Wiel, David W. Wilcox

A number of observers have advocated recently that the Federal Reserve take an "opportunistic " approach to the conduct of monetary policy. A hallmark of this approach is that the...

A Quantitative Exploration of the Opportunistic Approach to Disinflation (1997)

Athanasios Orphanides, David H. Small, Volker Wiel, David W. Wilcox

A number of observers have advocated recently that the Federal Reserve take an �opportunistic" approach to the conduct of monetary policy. A hallmark of this approach is that the central...

The Opportunistic Approach to Disinflation (1996)

Athanasios Orphanides, David W. Wilcox

This paper explores the theoretical foundations of a new approach to monetary policy. Proponents of this approach hold that when inflation is moderate but still above the long-run objective, the Fed...

STATISTICS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT: IMPROVING THE CONSUMER PRICE INDEX

William A. Barnett, Katharine G. Abraham, Robert J. Gordon, Jack E. Triplett, David W. Wilcox, Kirk M. Wolter

The position taken by William Barnett in this panel discussion is that federal government agencies, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, view researchers as being among those who comprise the...

Monetary Policy and Credit Conditions: Evidence From the Composition of External Finance

Anil K Kashyap, Jeremy C. Stein, David W. Wilcox

In this paper we use the relative movements in bank loans and commercial paper to provide evidence on the existence of a loan supply channel of monetary policy transmission. A first necessary...

Reforming the Defined-Benefit Pension System

David W. Wilcox

Defined-benefit pensions typically expose workers to a form of financial risk that they are ill positioned to bear and unable to hedge. If workers understand that risk, they will offer employers a...

Interactions between the Seasonal and Business Cycles in Production and Inventories.

Cecchetti, Stephen G, Kashyap, Anil K, Wilcox, David W

This paper shows that, in several U.S. manufacturing industries, the seasonal variability of production and inventories varied with the state of the business cycle. The authors present a simple model...

Monetary Policy and Credit Conditions: Evidence from the Composition of External Finance.

Kashyap, Anil K, Stein, Jeremy C, Wilcox, David W

In this paper, the authors use the relative moments in bank loans and commercial paper to provide evidence on the existe nce of a loan-supply channel of monetary-policy transmission. The author s...

The Construction of U.S. Consumption Data: Some Facts and Their Implications for Empirical Work.

Wilcox, David W

This paper investigates the sources and methods used to construct the aggregate data on consumer spending in the United States, searching especially for imperfections that may have implications for...

Policy Watch: The Introduction of Indexed Government Debt in the United States.

Wilcox, David W

This article describes the early phases of the development of the market for indexed government debt in the United States. The first such bonds were issued in 1997--one set with a maturity of ten...

The opportunistic approach to disinflation

Athanasios Orphanides, David W. Wilcox

This paper explores the theoretical foundations of a new approach to monetary policy. Proponents of this approach hold that when inflation is moderate but still above the long-run objective, the Fed...

A quantitative exploration of the opportunistic approach to disinflation

Athanasios Orphanides, David H. Small, Volker Wieland, David W. Wilcox

A number of observers have advocated recently that the Federal Reserve take an ``opportunistic'' approach to the conduct of monetary policy. A hallmark of this approach is that the central bank...

Judging Instrument Relevance in Instrumental Variables Estimation.

Hall, Alastair R, Rudebusch, Glenn D, Wilcox, David W

Recent research has emphasized the poor finite-sample performance of the instrumental variables estimator when the instruments are weakly correlated with the regressors. The authors show how the...

The Sustainability of Government Deficits: Implications of the Present-Value Borrowing Constraint.

Wilcox, David W

This paper introduces a new methodology for evaluating the sustainability of fiscal policy. The new methodology is distinguished from most existing tests in two important respects: first, it allows...

The Opportunistic Approach to Disinflation.

Orphanides, Athanasios, Wilcox, David W

This paper explores the theoretical foundations of a new approach to monetary policy. Proponents of this approach hold that, when inflation is moderate but still above the long-run objective, the...

Reforming the Defined-Benefit Pension System

David W. Wilcox

Defined-benefit pensions typically expose workers to a form of financial risk that they are ill positioned to bear and unable to hedge. If workers understand that risk, they will offer employers a...

Reforming the Defined-Benefit Pension System

David W. Wilcox

Defined-benefit pensions typically expose workers to a form of financial risk that they are ill positioned to bear and unable to hedge. If workers understand that risk, they will offer employers a...

Production and Inventory Control at the General Motors Corporation during the 1920's and 1930's.

Kashyap, Anil K, Wilcox, David W

This paper analyzes dynamics of production and inventories at the General Motors Corporation during the 1920s and 1930s. The authors begin by examining anecdotal evidence on the nature of the...

A Comparison of Alternative Instrumental Variables Estimators of a Dynamic Linear Model.

West, Kenneth D, Wilcox, David W

Using a dynamic linear equation that has a conditionally homoskedastic moving average disturbance, the authors compare two parameterizations of a commonly used instrumental variables estimator...

A Comparison of Alternative Instrumental Variables Estimators of Dynamic Linear Model

Kenneth D. West, David W. Wilcox

Using a dynamic linear equation that has a conditionally homoskedastic moving average disturbance, we compare two parameterizations of a commonly used instrumental variables estimator (Hansen (1982))...

Interactions between the seasonal and business cycles in production and inventories

Stephen G. Cecchetti, Anil K. Kashyap, David W. Wilcox

This paper shows that in several U.S. manufacturing industries, the seasonal variability of production and inventories varies with the state of the business cycle. We present a simple model which...

Household spending and saving: measurement, trends, and analysis

David W. Wilcox

Consumer behavior ; Consumption (Economics) ; Saving and investment

Employee Decisions with Respect to 401(k) Plans: Evidence From Individual-Level Data

Andrea L. Kusko, James M. Poterba, David W. Wilcox

401(k) plans have been the most rapidly growing type of employer- provided pension plan during the last decade. This paper utilizes employee-level data from the 401(k) plan at a medium-sized U.S....

Do Firms Smooth the Seasonal in Production in a Boom? Theory and Evidence

Stephen G. Cecchetti, Anil K Kashyap, David W. Wilcox

Using disaggregated production data we show that the size of seasonal cycles changes significantly over the course of the business cycle. In particular, during periods of high economy-wide activity,...

Mismeasurement in the Consumer Price Index: An Evaluation

Matthew D. Shapiro, David W. Wilcox

A number of analysts have claimed recently that the consumer price index overstates the annual increase in the cost of living. This paper develops a framework for studying measurement problems in the...

Quality Improvement in Health Care: A Framework for Price and Output Measurement

Irving Shapiro, Matthew D. Shapiro, David W. Wilcox

The durability of health care treatment, the substantial technical change in health care treatment, and the prevalence of third-party payment interact to create substantial difficulty in measuring...

Alternative Strategies for Aggregating Prices in the CPI

Matthew D. Shapiro, David W. Wilcox

The Consumer Price Index does not take into account the fact that consumers alter the composition of their purchases in response to changes in relative prices. This substitution effect will cause the...

Fiscal Policy and Social Security Policy During the 1990s

Douglas W. Elmendorf, Jeffrey B. Liebman, David W. Wilcox

This paper reviews the course of fiscal policy and Social Security policy during the 1990s. The 1990s witnessed two fundamental changes in U.S. fiscal policy: a dramatic improvement in the current...

Some Evidence on Finite Sample Behavior of an Instrumental Variables Estimator of the Linear Quadtratic Inventory Model

Kenneth D. West, David W. Wilcox

We evaluate some aspects of the finite sample distribution of an instrumental variables estimator of a first order condition of the Holt et al. (1960) linear quadratic inventory model. We find that...

A Comparison of Alternative Instruments Variables Estimators of a Dynamic Linear Model

Kenneth D. West, David W. Wilcox

Using a dynamic linear equation that has a conditionally homoskedastic moving average disturbance, we compare two parameterizations of a commonly used instrumental variables estimator (Hansen (1982))...

Generating Non-Standard Multivariate Distributions with an Application to Mismeasurement in the CPI

Matthew D. Shapiro, David W. Wilcox

This paper shows how to generate the joint distribution of correlated random variables with specified marginal distributions. For cases where the marginal distributions are either normal or...

Social Security Benefits, Consumption Expenditure, and the Life Cycle Hypothesis.

Wilcox, David W

This paper examines the impact of changes in social security benefits on aggregate consumption expenditure. Under the null hypothesis, there should be no contemporaneous effect at the monthly...

Interactions between the seasonal and business cycles in production and inventories

Stephen G. Cecchetti, Anil K. Kashyap, David W. Wilcox

This paper shows that in several U.S. manufacturing industries, the seasonal variability of production and inventories varies with the state of the business cycle. We present a simple model which...