We develop a life-cycle model and calibrate it to the US economy to quantify and qualify the role of the public pension system for the past and future trend of the natural interest rate, the so-called r∗. Between 1970 and 2015, past pension reforms mitigated the secular decline in r∗,...

Using a tractable New Keynesian model with heterogeneous agents, we analyze the interplay between households’ heterogeneity and rational bubbles, and their normative implications for monetary policy. Heterogeneity stems from idiosyncratic uncertainty related to participation in the asset and...

Asset price bubbles are a major source of macroeconomic instability, but can they play a different role in a low interest rates environment? To answer this question, I study an economy in which the natural rate of interest declines permanently, and the zero lower bound makes risk-free interest...

We investigate the possibility to reflate an economy experiencing a long-lasting zero lower bound episode with subdued or negative inflation by imposing a minimum level of wage inflation. Our proposed income policy relies on the same mechanism behind past disinflationary policies, but it works...

The natural interest rate is the level of the real interest rate compatible with potential output and stable prices. We develop a life-cycle model and calibrate it to the US economy to quantify the role of the public pension scheme for the past and future evolution of the natural interest rate....