Business Cycles: Theories, Evidence and Analysis

The new classical revolution seems to have transformed macroeconomics into the theory of economic fluctuations. It is, in a sense, a return to the origins of macroeconomics as a discipline as fashioned by Hayek, Keynes and Lindahl. But the scope has shifted in the intervening five decades and more. It is this new scope - and the new tools that forge its expansion - that are surveyed and analysed in this volume.

Preface - The Economic Association - List of Participants - PART 1 - Introduction; N.Thygesen, K.Velupillai & S.Zambelli - Welcome Speech; N.Thygesen - Theories of the Trade Cycle: From Frisch to Lucas and beyond; K.Velupillai - PART 2: THE DISTINGUISHED LECTURES - Business Cycles, Manias and Panics in Industrial Societies; C.Kindleberger - Cuspoidal Nets; R.Abraham - A Constructive Approach to Economic Fluctuations; J.McCall - Discussants' Comments - PART 3: EQUILIBRIUM THEORIES OF THE BUSINESS CYCLE - Hours and Employment Variation in Business Cycle Theory; F.E.Kydland & E.C.Prescott - Cycles and Non-Stationary Equilibrium Search; C.Fershtman & A.Fishman - Discussants' Comments - PART 4: NONEQUILIBRIUM MACRODYNAMICS OF FLUCTUATIONS - Rationality and Cycles in the Multiplier-Accelerator Model; J.P.Laffargue & P.Malgrange - Strange Attractors and Endogenous Business Cycle Theory; H-W.Lorenz - Discussants' Comments - PART 5: 'GOLDEN AGE' FLUCTUATIONS AND INTERWAR REGIMES: TWO EMPIRICAL STUDIES - Money and Business Cycles in Britain, 1870-1913; F.Capie - The Comparative Performance of Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rate Regimes: Interwar Evidence; B.Eichengreen - Discussants' Comments - PART 6: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LONG WAVES - Long Cycles: Preview and Current Issues; R.M.Entov & A.V.Poletayev - A War-Economy Theory of the Long-Wave; J.S.Goldstein - Discussants' Comments - PART 7: THE TIME-SERIES OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL FLUCTUATIONS: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS AND AN EMPIRICAL EXPLORATION - Permanent and Transitory Components in Macro-economics; M.Lippi & L.Reichlin - Politics Matter After All (I): Testing Alesina's Theory of RE Partisan Cycles on Data for 17 Countries; M.Paldam - Discussants' Comments - PART 8: PANEL DISCUSSION AND CLOSING SPEECH - Will the Business Cycle Ever be Obsolete in Industrial Societies? - Nonlinear Dynamics and Economic Evolution; R.M.Goodwin - Index