Search Results
Working Paper
Why state medicaid costs vary: a first look
This study will begin by reviewing why governments have a role in providing ,health care for their citizens. The following sections will explain why the Medicaid program has become a substantial burden for many state governments and why that burden is likely to increase. The~study will then examine why some states? Medicaid expenditures are well above average and will outline some choices that policymakers may be forced to consider in the immediate future.
Journal Article
NAFTA: fast forward?
Journal Article
Public-private cost shifts in nursing home care
This article presents estimates of the degree to which individuals paying privately for nursing home services are being asked to subsidize their states Medicaid program. Recently published data permit making some first rough estimates of the extent of this activity. Although these crude measures must be interpreted with great care, the data suggest that cost-shifting activity is widespread and sizable. ; Because, as the article shows, cost-shifting activity undermines policy makers efforts to regulate nursing home costs, the article suggests that private patients should not be asked to ...
Journal Article
Inflation, asset markets, and economic stabilization: lessons from Asia
In 1980's, a new convention emerged in the economics profession - that central banks' primary, even sole, responsibility should be controlling consumer price inflation. By the 1990's, this view was gaining credibility in policy circles, and various countries mandated that their central banks make inflation their primary focus (generally with and escape clause in the event of a severe economic shock). Here in the United States, this orthodoxy never gained official status; rather, the U.S. policy goal remains promoting stable long-term growth using a variety of theoretical approaches. ; The ...
Journal Article
U.S. monetary policy in an integrating world: 1960 to 2000
This article examines the impact of global developments on the practice of U.S. monetary policy, broadly defined to include regulatory and lender-of-last-resort functions as well as open market, discount, and intervention activity, over the past forty years. It is part of a paper presented at the forty-fifth economic conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The authors briefly review a few familiar facts establishing the increased openness of the U.S. economy, and go on to explore episodes when external events beyond those included in the domestic outlook-events like significant ...
Conference Paper
Seismic shifts: the economic impact of demographic change: an overview
Most economic developments are hard to predict. Considerable uncertainty surrounds forecasts for output growth, inflation, and unemployment a year from now, for instance. But demographic developments are different in this respect. Although demographic surprises abound, the major trends build slowly, and the broad contours of medium-term outcomes become discernible well in advance.
Journal Article
Competition & opportunity
Journal Article
Why the interest in reforming the International Monetary System?
The recent spate of severe financial crises has provoked an interest in international monetary reform not seen since the breakdown of the fixed exchange rate system 30 years ago. Indeed, the crises have forced both academic economists and policymakers to question some of their most basic assumptions about the appropriate design of the international monetary system. This article was the introductory paper at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's conference on "Rethinking the International Monetary System," held in June 1999. The article reviews recent changes in the economic environment that ...
Journal Article
Rethinking the International Monetary System: an overview
When the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston chose "Rethinking the International Monetary System" as the topic for its 43rd Economic Conference, it was clear that the worst international financial crisis in decades had caused tremors within the economics profession and the policymaking establishment. The miracle countries of Asia had suffered sharp currency devaluation and deep economic downturns, the turmoil had spilled over into Russia and Latin America, and a severe liquidity crisis had briefly threatened banking systems in the advanced countries. Not surprisingly, then, the events of the ...
Journal Article
Foreign investment in the United States: a cause for concern?