Most DSGE models and methods make inappropriate asymmetric information assumptions. They assume that all economic agents have full access to measurement of all variables and past shocks, whereas the econometricians have no access to this. An alternative assumption is that there is symmetry, in...

We initially examine two different methods for learning about parameters in a Rational Expectations setting, and show that there are conflicting E-stability results. We show that this conflict also extends to Minimum State Variable (MSV) representations. One of these methods of learning lends...

We examine bank lending decisions in an economy with spillover effects in the creation of new investment opportunities and asymmetric information in credit markets. We examine pricesetting equilibria with horizontally differentiated banks. If bank lending takes place under a weak corporate...

Stabilization policy involves joint monetary and fiscal rules. We develop a model enabling us to characterize systematic simple monetary and fiscal policy over the business cycle. We principally focus on the following question: what are the key properties of the joint simple rule governing the...

The paper investigates the notion that preference shocks play a central role in our understanding of the Great Depression. I identify a series of universally large negative shocks which destabilized the U.S. during the 1930s. When the artificial economy is paired with variable capital...

Cogan et al. (2009, 2010) claim that the stimulus package passed by the United States Congress in February 2009 had a multiplier far below one. However, the stimulus’ multiplier strongly depends on the assumed monetary policy response. Based on official statements from the Fed chairman,...

This paper proposes an explanation for mixed evidence on the behaviors of markups. The key mechanism consists of two complementary channels of risk internalization that arise when firms face uninsurable business risks. One channel is based on passive risk consideration, through which firms raise...

We re-investigate the delayed overshooting puzzle. We find that delayed overshooting is primarily a phenomenon of the 1980s when the Fed was under the chairmanship of Paul Volcker. Related findings are as follows: (1) Uncovered interest parity fails to hold during the Volcker era and tends to...

Within the standard RBC model, we examine issues of expectational coordination on the unique rational expectations equilibrium. Our study first provides a comprehensive assessment of the sensitivity of agents’ ?plans and decisions to their short-run and long-run expectations. We show this...

We study the effect of inflation on the wage dispersions due to firm heterogeneity and on-the-job search, in the context of a labour market á la Postel-Vinay and Robin (International Economic Review 43, 2002) and micro-founded money demand. The productivity distribution of firms is firstly...