How can monetary policy be improved?

Monetary policy - United States ; Monetary policy ; Banks and banking, Central

Summing up on business cycles: opening address

Business cycles

Maximum Principles in Analytical Economics

Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 11, 1970general equilibrium;

An Interview with Paul A. Samuelson

This paper consists of the page proofs of W. A. Barnett's interview of Paul A. Samuelson, to appear in print in the journal, Macroeconomic Dynamics, in September 2004. To our knowledge, this is the first and only interview of Paul A. Samuelson published in a professional economics journal. In addition, this is the only interview conducted personally by the Editor of Macroeconomic Dynamics, William A. Barnett. The interview covers Samuelson's views on the economics profession from 1929 to the present and an overview of Samuelson's career as one of the greatest economists of all time.history of economic thought, Samuelson, macroeconomics, microeconomics, policy

The Harvard-Circle

This brief note reflects on the times when Joseph A. Schumpeter was engaged at Harvard University in Boston/Mass, 1932-1950. A description of Schumpeter’s interaction with friends and collaborators as well as opponents, of the intellectual struggles he was engaged in as well as the ideological dimensions of his life and approaches sheds an interesting light on a scholar whose oeuvre received full admiration only some decades after he passed away in 1950

Volatility term structures in commodity markets

In this study, we comprehensively examine the volatility term structures in commodity markets. We model state‐dependent spillovers in principal components (PCs) of the volatility term structures of different commodities, as well as that of the equity market. We detect strong economic links and a substantial interconnectedness of the volatility term structures of commodities. Accounting for intra‐commodity‐market spillovers significantly improves out‐of‐sample forecasts of the components of the volatility term structure. Spillovers following macroeconomic news announcements account for a large proportion of this forecast power. There thus seems to be substantial information transmission between different commodity markets

Mesoscopic Thermovoltage Measurement Design

Quantitative thermoelectric measurements in the mesoscopic regime require accurate knowledge of temperature, thermovoltage, and device energy scales. We consider the effect of a finite load resistance on thermovoltage measurements of InAs/InP heterostructure nanowires. Load resistance and ac attenuation distort the measured thermovoltage therefore complicating the evaluation of device performance. Understanding these effects improves experimental design and data interpretation.Comment: 2 pages, 3 figure

Inside the Economist's Mind: The History of Modern Economic Thought, as Explained by Those Who Produced It

This is the front matter from a book of interviews to be published by Blackwell. The book is coedited by W. A. Barnett and P. A. Samuelson. The front matter includes the Table of Contents, Coeditor Preface by W. A. Barnett, Coeditor Foreword by Paul A. Samuelson, and History of Thought Introduction by E. Roy Weintraub. The front matter highlights some of the more startling and controversial statements contained in the interviews and puts the interviews into context relative to the history of modern economic thought. The interviews reprinted in this book include: (1) Wassily Leontief interviewed by Duncan Foley. (2) David Cass interviewed jointly by Steven Spear and Randall Wright. (3) Robert E. Lucas interviewed by Bennett T. McCallum. (4) Janos Kornai interviewed by Olivier Blanchard. (5) Franco Modigliani interviewed by William Barnett and Robert Solow. (6) Milton Friedman interviewed by John Taylor. (7) Paul A. Samuelson interviewed by William A. Barnett. (8) Paul Volcker interviewed by Perry Mehrling. (9) Martin Feldstein interviewed by James Poterba. (10) Christopher Sims interviewed by Lars Peter Hansen. (11) Robert Shiller interviewed by John Campbell. (12) Stanley Fischer interviewed by Olivier Blanchard. (13) Jacques Drèze interviewed by Pierre Dehez and Omar Licandro. (14) Tom Sargent interviewed by George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja. (15) Robert Aumann interviewed by Sergiu Hart. (16) James Tobin and Robert Shiller interviewed by David Colander.history of economic thought, Samuelson, macroeconomics, microeconomics, policy, interviews

Probing confined phonon modes by transport through a nanowire double quantum dot

Strong radial confinement in semiconductor nanowires leads to modified electronic and phononic energy spectra. We analyze the current response to the interplay between quantum confinement effects of the electron and phonon systems in a gate-defined double quantum dot in a semiconductor nanowire. We show that current spectroscopy of inelastic transitions between the two quantum dots can be used as an experimental probe of the confined phonon environment. The resulting discrete peak structure in the measurements is explained by theoretical modeling of the confined phonon mode spectrum, where the piezoelectric coupling is of crucial importance.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; final versio