The welfare cost of random consumption fluctuations is known from De Santis (2007) to be increasing in the level of individual consumption risk in the economy. It is also known from Barillas et al. (2009) to increase if agents in the economy care about robustness to model misspecification. In...

A well-known time-inconsistency problem hinders optimal decision-making when policymakers are constrained in their pesent choices by expectations of future outcomes.  The time-inconsistency problem is caused by differences in the preferences of policymakers who exist at different points in...

Why is inflation so much lower and at the same time more stable in developed economies in the 1990s, compared with the 1970s? This paper suggests that the United Kingdom, United States and other countries may have escaped from a volatile inflation equilibrium. Our argument builds on the story...

We introduce learning into a Hotelling model of a non-renewable resource market. By combining learning and scarcity we add significantly to the dynamics implied by learning and substantially enhance the volatility of commodity prices. In our learning model we show how a self confirming...

Using oil prices since 1832 we consider the evidence in favour of escape dynamics in the oil industry and provide estimates of market inference regarding oil scarcity.

In response to the Great Financial Crisis, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and many other central banks have adopted unconventional monetary policy instruments. We investigate if one of these, purchases of long-term government debt, could be a valuable addition to conventional...