The Transformation of Macroeconomic Policy and Research

What I am going to describe for you is a revolution in macroeconomics, a transformation in methodology that has reshaped how we conduct our science. Prior to the transformation, macroeconomics was largely separate from the rest of economics. Indeed, some considered the study of macroeconomics fundamentally different and thought there was no hope of integrating macroeconomics with the rest of economics, that is, with neoclassical economics. Others held the view that neoclassical foundations for the empirically determined macro relations would in time be developed. Neither view proved correct. Finn Kydland and I have been lucky to be a part of this revolution, and my address will focus heavily on our role in advancing this transformation. Now, all stories about transformation have three essential parts: the time prior to the key change, the transformative era, and the new period that has been impacted by the change. And that is the story I am going to tell: how macroeconomic policy and research changed as the result of the transformation of macroeconomics from constructing a system of equations of the national accounts to an investigation of dynamic stochastic economies. Macroeconomics has progressed beyond the stage of searching for a theory to the stage of deriving the implications of theory. In this way, macroeconomics has become like the natural sciences. Unlike the natural sciences, though, macroeconomics involves people making decisions based upon what they think will happen, and what will happen depends upon what decisions they make. This means that the concept of equilibrium must be dynamic, and – as we shall see – this dynamism is at the core of modern macroeconomics.