IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedmqr/y1990isprp3-18nv.14no.2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Business cycles: real facts and a monetary myth

Author

Listed:
  • Finn E. Kydland
  • Edward C. Prescott

Abstract

This paper argues that the reporting of facts in light of theory fosters the development of theory. Dynamic neoclassical macro theory guided the selection of facts to report. The hope is that these facts will foster the further development of this theory. A finding is that the price level is countercyclical in the post-Korean War period. This finding debunks the myths that the price level is procyclical, with the postwar period being no exception.

Suggested Citation

  • Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1990. "Business cycles: real facts and a monetary myth," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 14(Spr), pages 3-18.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmqr:y:1990:i:spr:p:3-18:n:v.14no.2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1421.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1421.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hodrick, Robert J & Kocherlakota, Narayana R & Lucas, Deborah, 1991. "The Variability of Velocity in Cash-in-Advance Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 358-384, April.
    2. Sargent, Thomas J, 1981. "Interpreting Economic Time Series," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 213-248, April.
    3. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    4. Cooley, Thomas F & Hansen, Gary D, 1989. "The Inflation Tax in a Real Business Cycle Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 733-748, September.
    5. Mankiw, N Gregory, 1989. "Real Business Cycles: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 79-90, Summer.
    6. Milton Friedman & Anna J. Schwartz, 1963. "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie63-1, March.
    7. Lucas, Robert E., 1977. "Understanding business cycles," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 7-29, January.
    8. Bernanke, Ben S., 1986. "Alternative explanations of the money-income correlation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 49-99, January.
    9. Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1993. "Cyclical movements of the labor input and its implicit real wage," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 29(Q II), pages 12-23.
    10. King, Robert G & Plosser, Charles I, 1984. "Money, Credit, and Prices in a Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 363-380, June.
    11. Victor Zarnowitz, 1989. "Facts and Factors in the Recent Evolution of Business Cycles in the United States," NBER Working Papers 2865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Minford, Patrick & Nowell, Eric & Meenagh, David & Sofat, Prakriti, 2005. "Real Exchange Rate Overshooting RBC Style," CEPR Discussion Papers 5029, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007, Elsevier.
    3. Guglielmo Maria Caporale & Gloria Claudio-Quiroga & Luis Alberiko Gil-Alana, 2022. "The relationship between prices and output in the UK and the US," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(6), pages 1-13, June.
    4. Michaelides, Panayotis G. & Milios, John G. & Konstantakis, Konstantinos N. & Tarnaras, Panayiotis, 2015. "Quantity-of-money fluctuations and economic instability: empirical evidence for the USA (1958–2006)," MPRA Paper 90145, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Carmen M. Reinhart. & Vicent R. Reinhart, 1991. "Fluctuaciones del producto y choques monetarios: evidencia colombiana," Revista ESPE - Ensayos Sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, vol. 10(20), pages 53-85, December.
    6. Escañuela Romana, Ignacio, 2016. "Azar, Determinismo e Indecidibilidad en la Teoría del Ciclo Económico [Randomness, Determinism and Undecidability in the Business Cycle Theory]," MPRA Paper 72978, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Pedro Garcia Duarte, 2015. "From real business cycle and new Keynesian to DSGE Macroeconomics: facts and models in the emergence of a consensus," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2015_05, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    8. Accolley, Delali, 2018. "Accounting for Busines Cycles in Canada: II. The Role of Money," MPRA Paper 85481, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Benk, Szilárd & Gillman, Max & Kejak, Michal, 2010. "A banking explanation of the US velocity of money: 1919-2004," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 765-779, April.
    10. Luis Eduardo Arango & Mauricio castillo, 1999. "¿ Son Estilizadas las Regularidades del Ciclo Económico? Una Breve Revisión de la literatura," Borradores de Economia 115, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    11. Finn E. Kydland & Scott Freeman, 2000. "Monetary Aggregates and Output," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1125-1135, December.
    12. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    13. Thiombiano, Noel & Ouedraogo, Salifou & Moussa, Abiboulaye, 2022. "Fiscal policy rules and economic fluctuations in the countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 252-263.
    14. Charles I. Plosser, 1989. "Money and business cycles: a real business cycle interpretation," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    15. Julián Arévalo & Angélica Castro & Édgar Villa, 2002. "Un análisis del ciclo económico en competencia imperfecta," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 4(7), pages 11-39, July-Dece.
    16. Latifa Ghalayini, 2018. "Monetary policy and business cycle fluctuations of the Lebanese economy," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 7(1), pages 1-15, December.
    17. Chollete, Loran & Ning, Cathy, 2009. "The Dependence Structure of Macroeconomic Variables in the US," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2009/31, University of Stavanger.
    18. Fischer Black, 1982. "General Equilibrium and Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 0950, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Gary Solon & Robert Barsky & Jonathan A. Parker, 1994. "Measuring the Cyclicality of Real Wages: How Important is Composition Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 1-25.
    20. Carmen M. Reinhart & Vincent R. Reinhart, 1991. "Output Fluctuations and Monetary Shocks: Evidence from Colombia," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 38(4), pages 705-735, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycles;

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Business Cycles: Real Facts and a Monetary Myth (Quarterly Review 1990) in ReplicationWiki
    2. Advanced Monetary Theory and Policy (ECON 447)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedmqr:y:1990:i:spr:p:3-18:n:v.14no.2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.