This Paper shows that price rigidity evolves in an economy populated by imperfectly rational agents who experiment with alternative rules of thumb. In the model, firms must set their prices in the face of aggregate shocks. The payoff depends on the level of aggregate demand, as well as on their...

This paper provides a general review of recent developments in the application of control theory to macroeconomic policy design. It starts by highlighting the crucial difference between the engineering and economic control problem, in that the latter, unlike the former, is concerned with the...

This paper extends the work of Barro and Gordon (1983) to general linear models with rational expectations. We examine the question whether the optimal policy rule, i.e. the one that a government which could pre-commit itself would use, can be sustained as a consistent rule in the sense defined...

A model of profits switches between four regimes with fixed probabilities; the rationally expected profits stream implies the stock market value. This efficient market model is not rejected by UK post-war time-series behaviour of either profits or the FTSE index.

Dynamic inconsistency provides a theoretical basis for discussions of policy credibility: when the government cannot commit its future policies, the incentive to deviate from the 'optimal' plan renders it incredible. We derive the best policy in the absence of precommitment as the feedback Nash...

If private sector agents hold rational expectations, they will predict any future policy switches. Discounting the announced optimal policies, if they are not credible, will lead to a response which deprives the government of any incentive to renege on previous announcements and of the benefits...

In this Paper we study the role of the exchange rate in conducting monetary policy in an economy with near-zero nominal interest rates as experienced in Japan since the mid-1990s. Our analysis is based on an estimated model of Japan, the United States and the euro area with rational expectations...

A finite number of sellers (n) compete in schedules to supply an elastic demand. The costs of the sellers have uncertain common and private value components and there is no exogenous noise in the system. A Bayesian supply function equilibrium is characterized; the equilibrium is privately...

We characterize the divergence between in informational and economic efficiency in a rational expectations competitive market with asymmetric information about the costs of production. We find that prices may contain too much or too little information with respect o incentive efficient...

This paper presents experimental evidence from a monetary sticky price economy in which output and inflation depend on expected future inflation. With rational inflation expectations, the economy does not generate persistent deviations of output and inflation in response to a monetary shock. In...