We study micro price dynamics and their macroeconomic implications using daily scanner data from 1988 to 2013. We provide five facts. First, posted prices in Japan are ten times as flexible as those in the U.S. scanner data. Second, regular prices are almost as flexible as those in the U.S. and...

In this paper we explore the role of financial intermediation malfunction in macroeconomic fluctuations in Japan. To this end we estimate, using Japanese data, a financial accelerator model in which the balance sheet conditions of entrepreneurs in a goods-producing sector and those of a...

To explore the relative macroeconomic importance of financial intermediaries' (FIs’) net worth to that of non-financial firms (entrepreneurs), we extend the financial accelerator model of Bernanke, et al. (1999), such that both FIs’ and entrepreneurs rely on costly external debt. Our model,...

The quantitative significance of shocks to the financial intermediary (FI) has not received much attention up to now. We estimate a DSGE model with what we describe as chained credit contracts, using Bayesian technique. In the model, credit-constrained FIs intermediate funds from investors to...

In this paper, we study bank loan responses to monetary policy and bank capital shocks using Japan’s disaggregated data sorted by borrower firms’ size and industry. Employing a block recursive VAR, we demonstrate that bank loan responses exhibit large sectoral heterogeneity. Among a broad...

This paper evaluates the effects of product turnover on a welfare-based cost-of-living index. We first present some facts about price and quantity changes over the product cycle employing scanner data for Japan for the years 1988-2013, which cover the deflationary period that started in the...

In this paper we consider a two-country New Open Economy Macroeconomics model, and analyze the optimal monetary policy when countries cooperate in the face of a "global liquidity trap"--i.e., a situation where the two countries are simultaneously caught in liquidity traps. The notable features...

Negative correlations between inflation and demographic aging were observed across developed nations recently. To understand the phenomenon from a politico-economic perspective, we embed the fiscal theory of the price level into an overlapping-generations model. In the model, successive...

Attempts by governments to stop bubbles by issuing warnings seem unsuccessful. This paper examines the effects of public warnings using a simple model of riding bubbles. We show that public warnings against a bubble can stop it if investors believe that a warning is issued in a definite range of...

This paper constructs a two-country DSGE model to study the nature of the recent financial crisis and its effects that spread immediately throughout the world owing to the globalization of banking. In the model, financial intermediaries (FIs) enter into chained credit contracts at home and...