Journal Article Growth in Local Tax Burdens Get access L. R. Gottlieb L. R. Gottlieb School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance, New York University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 37, Issue 2, February 1923, Pages 374–382, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883937 Published: 01 February 1923

THE purpose of the following study is twofold: to examine the nature of the cycles in interest rates and to criticize the application of the periodogram method to economic statistics. As for the particular series under investigation, it may be said at once that no uniform periodicity is revealed. If we confine the analysis to those portions of the entire time interval which are fairly free of extreme deviations, we discover however a cyclical movement which conforms moderately well to the average found by the periodogram. This average cycle has a length of about 40 months, and its form may be described as that of a sine curve distorted so that the time interval from low to high considerably exceeds that from high to low. It is found that, because of the presence of a marked seasonal variation and of irregular extreme deviations in the economic statistical record, the blind application of the periodogram method is likely to yield results which are illusory. Even after the results are checked by the usual tests available for the criticism of the findings of a periodogram analysis, a thorough examination should be made of the actual cycles found by eliminating the seasonal variation from the original data. It is probable that the summation process involved in the periodogram method will be of considerable value in studies of the length and form of the cycles in those portions of a statistical record which are clearly free of irregular extremes, but it is very doubtful whether the attempt to analyze the form of the cycle by the Fourier method will assist in describing or understanding the cycle. The average form of the cycle is at best not very precisely determined, and its breaking up into a group of harmonic components of differing periods and amplitudes is certainly bewildering and probably furnishes no true insight into the nature of economic fluctuation.

Journal Article Income in the United States Get access Arthur L. Bowley Arthur L. Bowley Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 37, Issue 3, May 1923, Pages 510–517, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883852 Published: 01 May 1923

Journal Article Reed's Development of Federal Reserve Policy Get access Frederic H. Curtiss Frederic H. Curtiss Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 38, Issue 1, November 1923, Pages 146–152, https://doi.org/10.2307/1885773 Published: 01 November 1923