We present a monetary model in the presence of segmented asset markets that implies a persistent fall in interest rates after a once and for all increase in liquidity. The gradual propagation mechanism produced by our model is novel in the literature. We provide an analytical characterization of...

We consider an inventory model for a liquid asset where the per-period net expenditures have two components: one that is frequent and small and another that is infrequent and large. We give a theoretical characterization of the optimal management of liquid asset as well as of the implied...

We model the decisions of a multi-product firm that faces a fixed "menu" cost: once it is paid, the firm can adjust the price of all its products. We characterize analytically the steady state firm's decisions in terms of the structural parameters: the variability of the flexible prices, the...

We model the optimal price setting problem of a firm in the presence of both information and menu costs. In this problem the firm optimally decides when to collect costly information on the adequacy of its price, an activity which we refer to as a price "review". Upon each review, the firm...

The empirical evidence on rational inattention lags far behind the theoretical developments: micro evidence on the most immediate consequence of observation costs − the infrequent observation of state variables − is not available in standard datasets. We contribute to filling the gap with...

We document the presence of both small and large price changes in individual price records from the CPI in France and the US. After correcting for measurement error and cross-section heterogeneity, the size-distribution of price changes has a positive excess kurtosis. We propose an analytical...

We provide a theoretical description of a process that is capable of generating growth and income convergence among economies, and where freer trade has persistent, positive effects on productivity, beyond the standard efficiency gains due to reallocation effects. We add to a standard Ricardian...

We study a variation of the Eaton-Kortum model, a competitive, constant-returns-to-scale multicountry Ricardian model of trade. We establish existence and uniqueness of an equilibrium with balanced trade where each country imposes an import tariff. We analyze the determinants of the...

This paper explores whether mandatory disclosure of bank balance sheet information can improve welfare. In our benchmark model, mandatory disclosure can raise welfare only when markets are frozen, i.e. when investors refuse to fund banks in the absence of balance sheet information. Even then,...

We develop a dynamic model of transitions in and out of employment. A worker finds a job at an optimal stopping time, when a Brownian motion with drift hits a barrier. This implies that the duration of each worker's jobless spells has an inverse Gaussian distribution. We allow for arbitrary...