Abstract A common hypothesis of interest in estimated Taylor rules is whether the Federal Funds rate increases more than one-for-one with inflation; a rule with this characteristic is described as stabilizing. This paper discusses the interaction of this hypothesis with the widespread use of a...

Abstract We compare equilibrium allocations in directed search models where prices are determined alternatively by posting and by competing auctions, with the following results. With finite numbers of players, sellers' expected payoffs are higher when all sellers auction than when all sellers...

Abstract This paper shows that, in a multi-country framework with government deficit spillovers, designing institutions that reduce the budget deficit is an optimal response from a country’s individual point of view. However, at an aggregate level this non-cooperative behavior is...

Abstract The worldwide growth slowdown after 1975 was a major negative fiscal shock; lower growth lowers the present value of tax revenues and primary surpluses and thus makes a given level of debt more burdensome. Most countries failed to adjust to the negative fiscal consequences of the growth...

Abstract Over the 1995-to-2000 period, U.S. productivity growth moved up to rates not seen in several decades. In this paper, I use time-varying parameter techniques to isolate trend from cyclical movements in productivity and to estimate the trend rate of productivity growth. My estimates...

Abstract The decision to invest in human capital is introduced into a home production economy with fiscal policy distortions where balanced growth is achieved through Harrod-neutral, labor-augmenting technology spillovers into home production. In comparison with home production economies that...

Abstract A probabilistic version of lump-sum money creation is studied in a random matching model with indivisible money and individual holdings bounded at 2 units. Sufficient conditions are obtained for an ex ante optimum from among implementable steady states to involve lump-sum creation of...

Abstract This paper provides a new rationalization for deposit insurance and systemic disintermediations. I consider an environment in which borrowers face no penalty for failing to repay obligations except the loss of their collateral. I assume that this collateral has aggregate risk. For a...

Abstract This paper shows that standard methods for estimating log-linearized consumption Euler equations using micro data cannot successfully uncover structural parameters like the coefficient of relative risk aversion from a dataset of simulated consumers behaving exactly according to the...

Abstract I suggest that the aggregate implications of indivisible labor are few, and subtle. First, I model behavior in an "indivisible labor" environment like those of Diamond and Mirrlees (1978, 1986), Hansen (1985), Rogerson (1988), Christiano and Eichenbaum (1992) and show how an inverse...