Brian C. Albrecht

When Can Waffle House Raise its Prices?

"Instead of being evidence that markets are 'no longer controlled by competition,' firms raising prices together is evidence of supply and demand at work." ~ Brian C. Albrecht

The Fed’s Decentralized System and the Spread of Economic Ideas

<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-a5b1ef64-7fff-a6bc-58c9-a991194b736f">Reserve Banks brought monetarism and rational expectations into the monetary policy discussion, and, more recently, they have fostered dissenting views on the Fed’s role as a lender of last resort and the effectiveness of quantitative easing.</span></p>

dallas-federal-reserve

The Zero Lower Bound was Irrelevant

<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ac9170b0-7fff-3bef-fb8f-12d577e7bad0">If the binding zero lower bound did not prolong the last recession, it may not prolong the next.</span></p>

buildingfloor

Are Financial Crises Driven By Supply Or Demand Shocks?

<p>In a new NBER working paper, Felipe Benguria and Alan M. Taylor consider whether <span id="docs-internal-guid-159fb899-7fff-efd9-a577-1946f1331460">financial crises usually stem from the demand or supply side of the market.</span></p>

The Gold Standard, FDR, and the Recovery of 1933

In a recent NBER working paper, Margaret M. Jacobson, Eric M. Leeper, and Bruce Preston argue that FDR’s abandonment of the gold standard helped bring an end to the Great Depression.

rowsofgoldbars

Sovereign Bonds Since The Battle of Waterloo

<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-7199034d-7fff-4b68-449d-a60667791de7">The history of sovereign debt appears to be a history of default, repudiation, and limited debt enforcement. Why, then, do investors keep going back?</span></p>

belgium-1632048_1280

Paper Money in Colonial North Carolina

<p>In a new NBER working paper, Cory Cutsail and Farley Grubb offer a novel data set on North Carolina’s paper-money regime (1712-1774).</p>

Carolina