Commentary on Trends in the aggregate labor force

Labor supply

Monetary policy and learning: Some implications for policy and research

In March 2003 the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta hosted a conference focusing on the relationship between monetary policy and learning. The conference papers and discussions are part of an emerging literature that introduces learning-about the economy or the model used by policymakers-into dynamic macroeconomic models. In some models, monetary policymakers learn about how the economy works while in others private agents learn about the model(s) the central bank uses to formulate monetary policy. ; This article outlines key issues, raised in a 1999 book by Thomas Sargent, about how to interpret monetary policy behavior and economic performance over the past thirty years using the Phillips curve framework and different assumptions about learning. To a large extent, several conference papers follow from Sargent's work. Some conference papers focus on understanding recent inflation history, attempting to detect monetary policy's role in generating the recent, more benign inflation performance. Other conference papers investigate the role of learning behavior in a variety of settings. The article outlines the implications from some of the papers. ; Finally, the article describes economic literature relating to central bank transparency, its relevance for effective communication to the public about monetary policy, and its likely role in future learning models. Through the transparency discussion, the article foreshadows Lars Svensson's keynote address at the conference (reprinted here), citing it as a "suggested user's guide for monetary policymakers to improve policy effectiveness."Monetary policy

Sudakov Logarithm Resummation in Transverse Momentum Space for Electroweak Boson Production at Hadron Colliders

A complete description of W and Z boson production at high-energy hadron colliders requires the resummation of large Sudakov double logarithms which dominate the transverse momentum (q_T) distribution at small q_T. We compare different prescriptions for performing this resummation, in particular implicit impact parameter space resummation versus explicit transverse momentum space resummation. We argue that the latter method can be formulated so as to retain the advantages of the former, while at the same time allowing a smooth transition to finite order dominance at high q_T.Comment: 32 pages, Latex, epsfig, 17 figure

Order of acquisition in learning perceptual categories: a laboratory analogue of the age-of-acquisition effect?

In the age-of-acquisition (AoA) effect, an advantage for recognition and production is found for items learned early in life, as compared with items learned later. In this laboratory analogue, participants learned to categorize novel random checkerboard stimuli. Some stimuli were presented from the onset of training; others were introduced later. At test, when early and late stimuli had equal cumulative frequency, early stimuli were classified significantly more quickly. Because stimuli were randomly assigned to be introduced either early or late, we can conclude that early stimuli were categorized more quickly because of their order of acquisition. This finding suggests that age- or order-of-acquisition effects are a general property of any learning system

An investigation of current sheet structure in a cylindrical Z-pinch

Structure of propagating current sheet in large radius cylindrical pinch discharg

Groundwater Resources in the Saline Valley Conservancy District, Saline and Gallatin Counties, Illinois

published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewedOpe

Japan's new security agenda

New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has only been in office since late September, but already the outlines of his administration are becoming clearer, both in expected and unexpected directions. Abe’s administration is proving to be conservative and revisionist, and even more so than that of his predecessor Junichirō Koizumi. Abe has certainly moved to improve ties with China and South Korea—Beijing and Seoul the October destinations for his first overseas visits within two weeks of taking power—and thereby to limit the damage wrought by Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine and bilateral wrangling over Japan’s colonial history. However, the general thrust of Abe’s diplomacy is built upon much of the legacy left by Koizumi, and is attempting to shift it on to a yet more pro-active and assertive path