This paper illustrates that the introduction of a money demand distortion into an otherwise standard New Keynesian Open Economy model generates multiple discretionary equilibria. These equilibria arise in the form of expectations traps whereby the monetary authority is trapped into validating...

A decision maker with time consistent preferences may exhibit diminishing impatience, when uncertain lifetime is accounted for. Uncertain lifetime captures not only the risk of mortality, but also the possibility that a promise for a delayed reward might be breached, or a postponed consumption...

Using a standard dynamic general equilibrium model, we show that the interaction of staggered nominal contracts with hyperbolic discounting leads to inflation having significant long-run effects on real variables

Estimated policy rules are reduced-form equations that are silent on many important policy questions. However, a structural understanding of monetary policy can be obtained by estimating a policymaker's objective function. The paper derives conditions under which the parameters in a...

We study the effects of nominal debt on the optimal sequential choice of monetary and debt policy. When the stock of debt is nominal, the incentive to generate unanticipated inflation increases the cost of the outstanding debt even if no unanticipated inflation episodes occur in equilibrium....

This paper stresses that estimated policy rules are reduced form equations that are silent on many important policy questions. To obtain a structural understanding of monetary policy it is necessary to estimate the policymaker's objective function, rather than its policy reaction function. With...

In this paper we address the issue of multilateralism versus bilateralism in a situation where a home government's optimal policy is time-inconsistent and the time-consistent policy sub-optimal. Short-run production and wage rigidities create incentive for the government to surprise private...

This note derives the dynamic programming equation (DPE) to a differentiable Markov Perfect equilibrium in a problem with non-constant discounting and general functional forms. We begin with a discrete stage model and take the limit as the length of the stage goes to 0 to obtain the DPE...

We use evidence from detailed records of FOMC deliberations to argue that time inconsistency theory can help explain the excessive monetary expansion that characterized Arthur Burns's tenure as Federal Reserve Chairman (1970-1978). The records suggest that the Fed perceived a Phillips curve...