Mit großen Ambitionen startete vor einem Vierteljahrhundert das Projekt „Deutsche Einheit“. Schon bald, so die verbreitete Erwartung, würden die ostdeutschen Länder sein wie „der Westen“. Heute, 25 Jahre nach dem Mauerfall, sind die wirtschaftlichen Divergenzen zwischen Ostdeutschland...

There exist sticky price models in which the output response to a government spending change can be large if the central bank is nonresponsive to inflation. According to this “expected inflation channel," government spending drives up expected inflation, which in turn, reduces the real...

A model is constructed in which consumers and banks have incentives to fake the quality of collateral. Conventional monetary easing can exacerbate these problems, in that the mispresentation of collateral becomes more profitable, thus increasing haircuts and interest rate differentials. Central...

Recent explanation of monetary policy and its effect have centered upon a non-cooperative game involving the monetary authority and the private sector. Notably absent from the discussion of asymmetric information and its impact on decision making is fiscal policy. This note examines a simple...

In this paper we study optimal monetary and fiscal policies, and the welfare costs of inflation, within the Lagos and Wright (2005) framework. Monetary equilibria may be inefficient without fiscal policy tools due to bargaining frictions. We show that subsidies in decentralized markets can be...