Business Economics articles from January 1997

Business Economics archives from January 1997

The Adam Smith address: an ambitious agenda for economic growth.
January 1, 1997... In this presidential election year, it has become fashionable to advocate faster economic growth as the elixir to cure all that ails the American society. Surely an average annual growth rate in the neighborhood of 2 percent is anemic, whether we...

The importance of demographics in economic analysis: the unusual suspects.
January 1, 1997... Most economic analyses - and almost all forecasts - are done using the regularly updated indicators that the U.S. government releases at either 8:30 or 10:00 a.m. As Claude Raines's character Captain Louis Renault said to his policemen in the...

Monetary policy objectives and strategy.
January 1, 1997... I want to share with you my perspective on the challenges facing monetary policy in the current economic environment. But I also want to emphasize the importance of setting monetary policy as part of a longer-run strategy that provides guidance...

Current conditions and future economic growth: the potential of technology and education.
January 1, 1997... Now is an important time for macroeconomic policy, for, at least at the broad levels, things seem to be going fairly well - solid growth, low unemployment, restrained price increases - in some ways a return to the golden economic years of the...

The privatization of currency and seigniorage.
January 1, 1997... The futuristic notion of electronic cash or "cybermoney" is redefining the conceptual framework of a modern economy's payments mechanism. However, the futurists' preoccupation with cybermoney has masked an important evolutionary development,...

Policies to grow the U.S. standard of living.
January 1, 1997... In this paper, I will emphasize the policies that can increase the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP). But it's important for us to remember that increasing the standard of living depends on more than increasing the growth of GDP. When...

Developing international rules for foreign investment: OECD's multilateral agreement on investment. (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
January 1, 1997... The main thrust of this paper is a progress report on the negotiations underway in Paris on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (the MAI). All internationally active firms have a stake in a positive outcome of these negotiations and in the...

Technology, capital and potential output.
January 1, 1997... Potential output - the long-term growth rate that is consistent with stable inflation - is usually measured as the sum of productivity, plus the growth in the labor force. In the short run, the economy can grow above potential in the event that...

Does sampling work? (surveys)
January 1, 1997... All of us form our impressions of banks, restaurants, foreign countries, businesses, and other people on the basis of a sample of dealing with them. Each of these institutions or people may interact with others many times, but our knowledge is...

The business economist at work: Eaton Corporation.
January 1, 1997... Perusal of a list of today's business bookshelves could make for some seemingly grim reading: dozens of different variations on the "Reengineering the Corporation" concept. If these are today's management imperatives, they strongly suggest that...

Industry corner: DIY home products: a global perspective. (do-it-yourself)
January 1, 1997... The DIY (do-it-yourself) home products industry encompasses products purchased by consumers in retail outlets (or, in some cases, directly from the manufacturer) in order to maintain, repair, alter, add on to, or replace any part of a residential...

The statistics corner.
January 1, 1997... The year 1997 may be the one in which some important steps are taken to improve our national statistics. Below is a review of some of the issues that business economists should learn more about. One important issue - bias in the CPI - is not...

The statistics producers' corner: improved estimates of advance monthly retail sales.
January 1, 1997... Effective with the advance retail sales estimates for May 1996 (published in mid-June), the Census Bureau introduced a new sample and modified some of the statistical procedures used to estimate "advance" estimates of monthly retail sales. These...

The PC corner.
January 1, 1997... I thought I would devote this quarter's column to miscellaneous topics and answer some questions recently posed to me on the subject of hardware upgrades. I am also bringing back the "Hint of the Quarter" and introducing a "Problem of the...

The Internet Strategy Handbook: Lessons from the New Frontier of Business.
January 1, 1997... Business organizations have been responsible for much of the recent exponential growth of activity on the Internet. Many corporations have established connections to the global computer network because it can be used to provide added value to...

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk.
January 1, 1997... Peter Bernstein has done it again. In 1992 he wrote an extraordinarily lucid story of the modern revolution in finance and investment in his book Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street (reviewed in Business Economics, April...

A Primer on Securitization.
January 1, 1997... This book is an interesting, useful and informative survey of one of the most important developments in contemporary financial markets, the securitization of hitherto essentially illiquid nonmarketable mortgages and loans. Indeed, according to...