Working Paper
Output and inflation in the long run
Irons, John S.; Ericsson, Neil R.; Tryon, Ralph W. (2000)
Cross-country regressions explaining output growth often obtain a negative effect from inflation. However, that result is not robust, due to the selection of countries in sample, temporal aggregation, and omission of consequential variables in levels. This paper demonstrates some implications of these mis-specifications, both analytically and empirically. In particular, for most G-7 countries, annual time series of inflation and the log-level of output are cointegrated, thus rejecting the existence of a long-run relation between output growth and inflation. Typically, output and inflation are ...
International Finance Discussion Papers , Paper 687

Working Paper
The Lucas critique in practice: theory without measurement
Irons, John S.; Ericsson, Neil R. (1995)
This paper investigates the empirical relevance of the Lucas critique. A database is constructed of all articles in the Social Science Citation Index that cite Lucas (1976). Those articles are characterized by the nature of the article, the context in which Lucas (1976) is cited, and the evidence presented on the Lucas critique. Virtually no evidence exists that empirically substantiates the Lucas critique. Empirical refutation of the Lucas critique by using tests of super exogeneity is illustrated with U.K. money demand. Numerous other studies similarly refute the Lucas critique for various ...
International Finance Discussion Papers , Paper 506

Working Paper
Money, politics and the post-war business cycle
Irons, John S.; Faust, Jon (1996)
While macroeconometricians continue to dispute the size, timing, and even the existence of effects of monetary policy, political economists often find large effects of political variables and often attribute the effects to manipulation of the Fed. Since the political econometricians often use smaller information sets and less elaborate approaches to identification than do macroeconometricians, their striking results could be the result of simultaneity and omitted variable biases. Alternatively, political whims may provide the instrument for exogenous policy changes that has been the Grail of ...
International Finance Discussion Papers , Paper 572

Working Paper
Can government gold be put to better use?: Qualitative and quantitative policies
Irons, John S.; Henderson, Dale W.; Salant, Stephen W.; Thomas, Sebastian (1997)
Gold has both private uses (depletion uses and service uses) and government uses. It can be obtained from mines with high extraction costs (about $300 per ounce) or from above ground stocks with no extraction costs. Governments still store massive stocks of gold. Making government gold available for private uses through some combination of sales and loans raises welfare from private uses by removing two types of inefficiencies. For given private uses, there is a production inefficiency if costless government gold is withheld while costly gold is taken from mines. There are use inefficiencies ...
International Finance Discussion Papers , Paper 582