http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/63243 2013-05-21T23:16:57Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77610 Currency Crises from Andrew Jackson to Angela Merkel Temin, Peter This paper presents a narrative of currency crises for the past two centuries. I use the Swan Diagram as a theoretical framework for this narrative and conclude that many so-called banking crises are in fact currency crises. These crises are caused by capital flows in war and peace and typically result in recessions. The Swan Diagram helps us to consider external and internal imbalances together and understand their interactions. It also reminds us that national histories often ignore the international aspect of economic crises. This paper draws on and extends work reported in Peter Temin and David Vines, The Leaderless Economy, Why the World Economic System Fell Apart and How to Fix It (Princeton, 2013). 2013-02-13T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77609 Statistics in Ancient History Temin, Peter This paper uses new data to extend the argument that there was an integrated wheat market in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. I explore the meaning of randomness when data are scarce, and I investigate how we recreate the nature of ancient societies by asking new questions that stimulate the discovery of more information. The case for a prosperous Roman society extending the length of the Mediterranean Sea is strong. This paper draws on and extends work reported in my new book: The Roman Market Economy (Princeton, 2013). 2013-02-13T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77608 Cyclical Unemployment Structural Unemployment Diamond, Peter Whenever unemployment stays high for an extended period, it is common to see analyses, statements, and rebuttals about the extent to which the high unemployment is structural, not cyclical. This essay views the Beveridge Curve pattern of unemployment and vacancy rates and the related matching function as proxies for the functioning of the labor market and explores issues in that proxy relationship that complicate such analyses. Also discussed is the concept of mismatch. 2013-01-15T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77607 The "Task Approach" to Labor Markets" An Overview Autor, David An emerging literature argues that changes in the allocation of workplace “tasks” between capital and labor, and between domestic and foreign workers, has altered the structure of labor demand in industrialized countries and fostered employment polarization—that is, rising employment in the highest and lowest paid occupations. Analyzing this phenomenon within the canonical production function framework is challenging, however, because the assignment of tasks to labor and capital in the canonical model is essentially static. This essay sketches an alternative model of the assignment of skills to tasks based upon comparative advantage, reviews key conceptual and practical challenges that researchers face in bringing the “task approach” to the data, and cautions against two common pitfalls that pervade the growing task literature. conclude with a cautiously optimistic forecast for the potential of the task approach to illuminate the interactions among skill supplies, technological capabilities, and trade and offshoring opportunities, in shaping the aggregate demand for skills, the assignment of skills to tasks, and the evolution of wages. 2013-01-24T00:00:00Z