Daniel A. Goldstein, Professor Kathryn, Mary Dominguez, Professor Miles, S. Kimball, Robert B. Barsky
To my parents, for their countless gifts of opportunity, encouragement, and love. ii Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the support of many people. I particularly want to...
Robert B. Barsky, Robert B. Barsky, F. Thomas Juster, F. Thomas Juster, Miles S. Kimball, Miles S. Kimball, ...
This paper reports measures of preference parameters relating to risk tolerance, time preference, and intertemporal substitution. These measures are based on survey responses to hypothetical...
An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Study (1993)
Robert B. Barsky, F. Thomas Juster, Miles S. Kimball, Matthew D. Shapiro, Matthew D. Shapiro, Robert B. Barsky, ...
Shapiro also acknowledge the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Carlos Quintanilla and Lisa Sanchez provided excellent research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge the constructive and...
The worldwide change in the behavior of interest rates and prices in 1914 (1988)
Barsky, Robert B., Mankiw, N. Gregory, Miron, Jeffrey A., Weill, David N.
This paper evaluates the role of the destruction of the gold standard and the founding of the Federal Reserve, both of which occured in 1914, in contributing to observed changes in the behavior of...
The Fisher hypothesis and the forecastability and persistence of inflation (1987)
For the period 1860 to 1939, the simple correlation of the U.S. commercial paper rate with the contemporaneous inflation rate is -0.17. The corresponding correlation for the period 1950 to 1979 is...
Three interest rate paradoxes /--by Robert B. Barsky. (1985)
Supervised by Stanley Fischer.
Why Don't the Prices of Stocks and Bonds Move Together?
The very low real interest rates on bonds in the 1970's were accompanied by a large drop in the value of common stocks relative to dividends and earnings. More generally, a number of authors have...
The Fisher Hypothesis and the Forecastability and Persistence of Inflation
For the period 1860 to 1939, the simple correlation of the U.S. commercial paper rate with the contemporaneous inflation rate is -.17. The corresponding correlation for the period 1950 to 1979 is...
Real Wages Over The Business Cycle
This paper is an examination of cyclical real wage behavior in the United States since World War II. Like most previous aggregate studies. ours finds little cyclicalitv in aggregate industry real...
Bull and Bear Markets in the Twentieth Century
The major bull and bear markets of this century have suggested to many that large decade-to-decade stock market swings reflect irrational "fads and fashions" that periodically sweep investors. We...
Ricardian Consumers With Keynesian Propensities
Robert B. Barsky, N. Gregory Mankiw, Stephen P. Zeldes
In this paper, we examine Ricardian equivalence of debt and tax finance in a world in which taxes are not lump-sum but are levied on risky labor income. First, we show that the marginal propensity to...
The Seasonal Cycle and the Business Cycle
Robert B. Barsky, Jeffrey A. Miron
Almost all recent research on macroeconomic fluctuations has worked with seasonally adjusted or annual data. This paper takes a different approach by treating seasonal fluctuations as worthy of study...
Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard
Robert B. Barsky, Lawrence H. Summers
This paper provides a new explanation for Gibson's Paradox -- the observation that the price level and the nominal interest rate were positively correlated over long periods of economic history. We...
Ricardian Consumers with Keynesian Propensities.
Barsky, Robert B, Mankiw, N Gregory, Zeldes, Stephen P
This paper examines Ricardian equivalence in a world in which taxes arenot lump sum, but are levied on risky labor income. It shows that themarginal propensity to consume out of a tax cut, coupled...
Oil and the Macroeconomy since the 1970s
Increases in oil prices have been held responsible for recessions, periods of excessive inflation, reduced productivity and lower economic growth. In this paper, we review the arguments supporting...
Sticky-Price Models and Durable Goods
Robert B. Barsky, Christopher L. House, Miles S. Kimball
The inclusion of a durable goods sector in sticky-price models has strong and unexpected implications. Even if most prices are flexible, a small durable goods sector with sticky prices may be...
Why Don't the Prices of Stocks and Bonds Move Together?
The 1970s were associated with very low real interest rates and a large drop in equity values relative to dividends and earnings. This paper explores the possible roles of increased risk and reduced...
The worldwide change in the behavior of interest rates and prices in 1914
Barsky, Robert B., Mankiw, N. Gregory, Miron, Jeffrey A., Weill, David N.
The Timing and Magnitude of Retail Store Markdowns: Evidence from Weekends and Holidays.
Warner, Elizabeth J, Barsky, Robert B
We examine daily prices of eight goods at seventeen retail stores collected in Ann Arbor, Michigan, over a four-month period from November 1 to February 28. We focus on weekly and seasonal price...
Why Does the Stock Market Fluctuate?
Barsky, Robert B, De Long, J Bradford
Major long-run swings in the U.S. stock market over the past century are broadly consistent with a model driven by changes in current and expected future dividends in which investors must estimate...
Forecasting Pre-World War I Inflation: The Fisher Effect and the Gold Standard.
Barsky, Robert B, De Long, J Bradford
The authors examine interest and inflation rates from 1879 to 1913. Deflation prior to 1896 was followed by inflation. Average U.S. inflation was 3.1 percentage points higher in the years after 1896,...
Forecasting Pre-World War I Inflation: The Fisher Effect Revisited
We consider the puzzling behavior of interest rates and inflation in the United States and the United Kingdom between 1879 and 1913. A deflationary regime prior to 1896 was followed by an...
The Worldwide Change in the Behavior of Interest Rates and Prices in 1914
Robert B. Barsky, N. Gregory Mankiw, Jeffrey A. Miron, David N. Weil
This paper evaluates the role of the destruction of the gold standard and the founding of the Federal Reserve, both of which occurred in 1914, in contributing to observed changes in the behavior of...
Why Does the Stock Market Fluctuate?
Large long-run swings in the United States stock market over the past century correspond to swings in estimates of fundamental values calculated by using a long moving average of past dividend growth...
Robert B. Barsky, Miles S. Kimball, F. Thomas Juster, Matthew D. Shapiro
Individuals' preferences underlying most economic behavior are likely to display substantial heterogeneity. This paper reports on direct measures of preference parameters relating to risk tolerance,...
Do We Really Know that Oil Caused the Great Stagflation? A Monetary Alternative
This paper argues that major oil price increases were not nearly as essential a part of the causal mechanism that generated the stagflation of the 1970s as is often thought. There is neither a...
The Seasonal Cycle and the Business Cycle.
Barsky, Robert B, Miron, Jeffrey A
Almost all recent research on macroeconomic fluctuations has worked with seasonally-adjusted or annual data. This paper takes a different approach by examining the seasonal movements themselves. The...
Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard.
Barsky, Robert B, Summers, Lawrence H
This paper contributes a new element to the explanations of the Gibson paradox, the puzzling correlation between interest rates and the price level seen during the gold-standard peri od. A shock that...
Bull and Bear Markets in the Twentieth Century
Barsky, Robert B., Long, J. Bradford De
The bull and bear markets of this century have suggested that large stock market swings reflect irrational We argue instead that investors perceived shifts in the long-run rate of future growth and...
The Japanese Bubble: A 'Heterogeneous' Approach
Employing the neutral Kindleberger definition of a bubble as "an upward price movement over an extended range that then implodes", this paper explores the causes of the "Japanese Bubble" of 1985 to...
Information, Animal Spirits, and the Meaning of Innovations in Consumer Confidence
Robert B. Barsky, Eric R. Sims
Innovations to measures of consumer confidence convey incremental information about economic activity far into the future. Comparing the shapes of impulse responses to confidence innovations in the...
Robert B. Barsky, Eric R. Sims
We implement a new approach for the identification of "news shocks" about future technology. In a VAR featuring a measure of aggregate technology and several forward-looking variables, we identify...