Using a log-linearized approximation to an aggregate budget constraint, it is possible to show that the ratio of consumption to total (human and non-human) wealth summarizes agents' expectations concerning both future labor income and future asset returns. In a series of recent papers, Lettau...

A number of researchers have recently argued that the new-Keynesian Phillips curve matches the empirical behavior of inflation well when the labor income share is used as a driving variable, but fits poorly when deterministically detrended output is used. The theoretical motivation for these...

An important trend in macroeconomic research in recent years involves the increased use of optimization-based models with nominal rigidities (such as sticky prices) to analyse how monetary policy affects the economy and how optimal policy should be designed. This paper presents a re-formulated...

Recent years have seen a proliferation in research aimed at assessing monetary policy rules using macroeconomic models built from explicit micro-foundations. In many versions of these models, pricing behaviour is described by a ``new-Keynesian Phillips curve,'' which relates inflation to...

In recent work, Woodford (2001) presents evidence that using real unit labor costs (labor's share of income) as a driving variable in the new-Keynesian Phillips curve yields a superior fit for inflation relative to a model that uses deterministically detrended real GDP. This evidence leads him...

Lettau and Ludvigson (2001) argue that a log-linearized approximation to an aggregate budget constraint predicts that log consumption, assets, and labor income will be cointegrated. They conclude that this cointegrating relationship is present in U.S. data, and that the estimated cointegrating...

This paper presents a re-formulated version of a canonical sticky-price model that has been extended to account for variations over time in the central bank's inflation target. We derive a closed-form solution for the model, and analyze its properties under various parameter values. The model is...

The existence of durable goods implies that the welfare flow from consumption cannot be directly associated with total consumption expenditures. As a result, tests of standard theories of consumption (such as the Permanent Income Hypothesis, or PIH) typically focus on nondurable goods and...

In recent years, a broad academic consensus has arisen around the use of rational expectations sticky-price models to capture inflation dynamics. These models are seen as providing an empirically reasonable characterization of observed inflation behavior once suitable measures of the output gap...

Lettau and Ludvigson (2001) argue that a log-linearized approximation to an aggregate budget constraint predicts that log consumption, assets, and labour income will be cointegrated. They conclude that this cointegrating relationship is present in U.S. data, and that the estimated cointegrating...