Frontiers of Business Cycle Research

Frontiers of Business Cycle Research collects a number of papers that are standards on my graduate reading lists and some others that soon will be. It adds two lucid introductory papers, one by Thomas Cooley and Edward Prescott and another on computing by Gary Hansen and Prescott. The result is an excellent volume that will be invaluable to macroeconomic researchers and a stimulating introduction for graduate students. -- Robert E. Lucas, Jr., University of Chicago This book will be an essential reference for economists seeking to understand stochastic growth models. -- John Campbell, Harvard This is an excellent book. It documents many achievements of the equilibrium approach to macroeconomics, and shows how it has been used to refine and interpret many empirical puzzles, and to reformulate practical policy issues. The authors of individual articles are leaders in developing and applying economic dynamics. -- Thomas Sargent, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Provides modern business cycle theory that starts with the view that growth and fluctuations are not distinct phenomena to be studied separately - and that business cycles result from shocks (such as the availability of new technologies), which regularly affect most economies.Among the most revolutionary and productive areas of economic research over the last two decades, modern business cycle theory is finally made accessible to students and professionals in this rigorous, unified, introductory volume. This theory starts with the view that growth and fluctuations are not distinct phenomena to be studied separately--and that business cycles result from shocks (such as the availability of new technologies), which regularly affect most economies. The unifying theme of this book is the use of the neoclassical growth framework to study the economic fluctuations associated with the business cycle. Presenting recent advances in dynamic economic theory and computational methods--with emphasis on the construction of equilibrium paths for simple artificial economies--leading experts orient readers in the quantitative study of aggregate fluctuations and apply its concepts to key issues in macroeconomics and business cycle theory. This volume covers such issues as the aggregate labor market, the role of the household sector, the role of money, the behavior of asset markets, non-Walrasian economies, monopolistically competitive economies, international business cycles, and the design of economic policies. The contributors are David Backus, V. V. Chari, Lawrence Christiano, Thomas F. Cooley, Jean-Pierre Danthine, John Donaldson, Jeremy Greenwood, Gary D. Hansen, Patrick Kehoe, Finn Kydland, Edward C. Prescott, Richard Rogerson, Julio Rotemberg, Geert Rouwenhorst, Jose-Victor Rios-Rull, Michael Woodford, and Randall Wright.