Founded in 1920, the National Bureau of Economic Research is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. The NBER is committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community.
建立于1920年，国家经济研究局是一个私人的、非盈利、无党派分歧的研究机构，专注于更好的理解经济运行状态。NBER决心致力于在
经济政策制定者、商业专家和科研院所之间传播无偏的经济研究。
Over the years the Bureau's research agenda has encompassed a wide variety of issues that confront our society. The Bureau's early research focused on the aggregate economy, examining in detail the business cycle and long-term economic growth. Simon Kuznets' pioneering work on national income accounting, Wesley Mitchell's influential study of the business cycle, and Milton Friedman's research on the demand for money and the determinants of consumer spending were among the early studies done at the NBER
1920年,米切尔组建了国民经济研究局(NBER),成为其研究主任和精神领袖。NBER的第一个研究项目是国民收入及其分配。此后,NBER的主要研究项目是根据经济现实的发展不断对米切尔的《经济周期》著作进行修订,包括使用国民收入数据进行修订。他们对经济周期的研究,是希望社会形成一种经济周期意识,也就是说,经济是按一种循环模式运行的:繁荣、衰退、萧条和复苏,每一个阶段都是前一阶段不可避免的结果,每一个阶段跟随着出现。最重要的是,NBER在经济周期领域的研究表明了一个事实:经济周期是
资本主义经济体系的内部因素导致的。