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The research reported in this volume represents the second stage of a wide-ranging National Bureau of Economic Research effort to investigate ""The Changing Role of Debt and Equity in Financing U.S. Capital Formation."" The first group of studies sponsored under this project, which have been published individually and summarized in a 1982 volume bearing the same title (Friedman 1982), addressed several key issues relevant to corporate sector behavior along with such other aspects of the evolving financial underpinnings of U.S. capital formation as household saving incentives, internationa

The fact that actual economic advance over time normally means producing and consuming different things is usually left implicit in modern models of economic growth. By contrast, qualitative change--new goods and services, and better versions of what already existed--is central to Robert Gordon's history of the improvement of American living standards since 1870. A major contribution of his fine-grained account of this experience is to make clear what this improvement has meant, and why it has mattered to ordinary citizens.

Large‐scale asset purchases—and sales too—are likely to become part of the standard toolkit of monetary policymaking. Central banks' purchases since the financial crisis have lowered long‐term interest rates relative to short‐term rates, and lowered interest rates on more‐risky compared to less‐risky obligations. Moreover, their introduction fills a conceptual vacuum that has long stood at the heart of monetary policy analysis and implementation. In contrast to the traditional focus on central banks' liabilities, the effectiveness of this policy tool turns on the role of the asset side of central banks' balance sheet. The implications for monetary theory are profound.