In recent decades the American economy has experienced the worst peace-time inflation in its history and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. Thesecircumstances have prompted renewed interest in the concept of business cycles, which Joseph Schumpeter suggested are "like the beat of the heart, of the essence of the organism that displays them."
In "The American Business Cycle," some of the most prominent macroeconomics in the United States focuses on the questions, To what extent are business cycles propelled by external shocks? How have post-1946 cycles differed from...

In Monetary Policy, leading monetary economists discuss applied aspects of monetary policy and offer practical new research on the timing, magnitude, and channels of central banking actions.

Some of the papers in this volume evaluate a variety of policy rules based on monetary aggregates, nominal income, commodity prices, and other economic variables. Others analyze price behavior and inflation, particularly the short-run behavior of prices. Still others examine the monetary transmission mechanism--the channel through which the central bank's actions affect spending on goods and...