This study explores the consequences of dollarizing an economy with an initial dollar shortage. We show that the resulting transitional dynamics are tantamount to that of a "sudden stop": consumption of tradable goods fall, the real exchange rate depreciates abruptly by a discrete drop in...

What is the effect of higher expectations of future inflation on current inflation? I compute this passthrough for a series of canonical firm-pricing models, but allowing for arbitrary (non-rational) expectations. In the Calvo model, the expectational-passthrough can be made arbitrarily close to...

We study the positive (not normative) effect of a permanent import tariff on trade deficits. We consider a two-period trade model with general preferences and technology. We first develop an aggregation result showing one can work with induced preferences over aggregate imports and exports. This...

This paper isolates the role of conflict or disagreement on inflation in two ways. In the first part of the paper, we present a stylized model, kept purposefully away from traditional macro models. Inflation arises despite the complete absence of money, credit, interest rates, production, and...

We present evidence that noisy financial flows influence financial conditions and macroeconomic activity. How should monetary policy respond to this noise? We develop a model where it is optimal for the central bank to target and (partially) stabilize financial conditions beyond their direct...

In a rich family of linearized structural macroeconomic models, the counterfactual evolution of the macro-economy under alternative policy rules is pinned down by just two objects: first, reduced-form projections with respect to a large information set; and second, the dynamic causal effects of...