Real Business Cycles

Chapter 1The limits of business cycle research

“That wine is not made in a day has long been recognized by economists.” With that declaration in Kydland and Prescott’s “Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations” (1982 [3]: 1345),^* the real business cycle school was born. Like wine, a school of thought is not made in a day. Only after it has matured is it possible to judge whether it is good and to separate the palatable portions from the dregs. The literature on real business cycle models has now sufficiently aged, ready for the connoisseurs to pass judgment.

To facilitate those judgments, we have collected together in this volume thirty-one previously published articles relevant to real business cycle models. While there has been no shortage ...