In a setting with dispersed information, monopolistic competition and sticky-prices, a policy authority uncertain about the monetary transmission mechanism reacts prudently to supply shocks. This induces producers to ascribe an excessive importance to their private information when setting...

These notes provide an intuitive introduction to dynamic programming. The first two Sections, which can be skipped, present the standard deterministic Ramsey model using the Lagrangian approach. Section 3 reformulates the Ramsey problem by means of a Bellman equation, while Section 4 shows how...

How should firms be incentivized to adopt new technologies when the technical merits and spillovers of such technologies are uncertain? We show that, when information is dispersed but exogenous, efficiency can be induced with simple (constant) subsidies. When, instead, firms must also be...

We model a two-parties electoral game in an environment where voters are imperfectly informed on the administrative ability of each party. In equilibrium, parties try to manipulate voters’ beliefs and implement fiscal policies that are looser than the social optimum. The size of this deviation...

In a dynamic stochastic monopoly union model we show that firing costs have a small and ambiguous impact on the level of employment if the union precommits to future wages. Further, in comparison with the commitment equilibrium and for very general union preferences, the no-commitment...

In a setting that focuses on efficient dynamic hours-workers substitution we show that contingent worksharing contributes to workers retention during bad business spells and to sustained hiring during good spells. As a consequence, average employment increases on both accounts. We also show that...

We model a two-parties electoral game in an environment where voters are imperfectly informed on the administrative ability of each party. In equilibrium, parties try to manipulate voters' beliefs and implement fiscal policies that are looser than the social optimum. The size of this deviation...

This paper investigates the reaction of active union members towards workplace organizational changes. We use micro-data from a large firm and estimate an empirical model which deals explicitly with the potential endogeneity of the union activist status. The data indicate that workers who become...

How should firms be incentivized to adopt new technologies when the technical merits and spillovers of such technologies are uncertain? We show that, when information is dispersed but exogenous, efficiency can be induced with simple (constant) subsidies. When, instead, firms must also be...

In chapter I, we model monopolistic competition in the spirit of Blanchard and Kiyotaki (1987) and we study the implications of this market structure for the existence of dynamically inefficient equilibria. We show that, with free entry, the presence of some pure profit does not rule out dynamic...