In recent research on financial crises, large exogenous shocks to total factor productivity (TFP) are used as the driving force accounting for large output falls. TFP fell 3% after the Korean 1997 financial crisis. We find evidence that the large fall in TFP is mostly due to a sectoral...

We develop a New Keynesian model with staggered price and wage setting where downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) arises endogenously through the wage bargaining institutions. It is shown that the optimal (discretionary) monetary policy response to changing economic conditions then becomes...

We address the poverty trap rationale for aid to Africa. We calibrate models that embody typical explanations for stagnation: coordination failures, ineffective mix of occupational choices and imperfect capital markets, and insufficient human capital accumulation coupled with high fertility....

Recent microeconomic studies have documented extensive downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) for job stayers in many OECD countries, but critics argue that the effect might be undone by compositional changes and flexibility in wages of new entrants. Using data for hourly nominal wages at...

This paper finds that a benchmark model of habit formation in consumer preferences can explain two well-known failures of the permanent income hypothesis: the sensitivity of aggregate consumption to predictable changes in income and to lagged consumer sentiment. One novel feature of the paper's...

Total factor productivity (TFP) falls markedly during financial crises, as we document with recent evidence from Latin America and Asia. We study the ability of various versions of the small open economy neoclassical growth model to account for the behavior of inputs, output, and aggregate...

This paper studies two roles that long-term nominal interest rates can play in the conduct of monetary policy in a New Keynesian model. The first allows long-term rates to enter the reaction function of the monetary authority. The second considers the possibility of using long-term rates as...

We analyze a monetary model with flexible labor supply, cash-in-advance constraints, and seigniorage- and tax-financed government spending. If the intertemporal elasticity of substitution of labor is greater than one, both determinate and indeterminate steady states exist. If the elasticity is...

We study the effects of inflation in a competitive search model where each buyer's utility is private information, and money is essential. The equilibrium is efficient at the Friedman rule, but inflation creates an inefficiency in the terms of trade. Buyers experience a preference shock after...

Inflation-targeting central banks have only imperfect knowledge about the effect of policy decisions on inflation. An important source of uncertainty is the relationship between inflation and unemployment. This paper studies the optimal monetary policy in the presence of uncertainty about the...