This paper investigates the relationship between nominal interest rates and prices using nearly two centuries of data from ten industrial countries. Both a positive relationship between interest rates and price levels (that is, a positive Gibson effect) and a negative relationship between interest rates and subsequent price changes (that is, a negative Fama-Fisher effect) prevailed until World War I. We propose a simple explanation wherein this doubly paradoxical juxtaposition of effects arises when money is supplied inelastically and prices are flexible. This double paradox disappeared after World War II when economies became mostly characterized by elastic money and sticky prices. During that period, a positive Fama-Fisher effect emerged while the Gibson effect largely dissipated.

The conventional approach to estimating how fast economics converge examines the cross-economy relationship between the growth rate of per-capita output over some time period and its initial level. This approach produces consistent estimates only under highly restrictive assumptions, which are violated by the data. The paper develops an alternative approach that produces consistent estimates under weak assumptions. This approach yields estimates substantially larger than those reported in the literature and also sufficiently large to be broadly consistent with the predictions of neoclassical growth theory.