In this paper the Maximum Principle is used to derive optimal policies for linear-quadratic, continuous-time economic systems where there may be more than one policy-maker and where the private sector may have rational expectations. The analogy between solving full-information differential games...

In a continuous time model of two symmetric open economies, with a floating exchange rate, we find that the pay-off to the policy coordination depends systematically on the heterogeneity of their inflation experience. While monetary policy coordination improves welfare when there is a common...

The interface between economic theory and applied econometrics is often one of uneasy compromise, with the pragmatic justification for many accepted procedures resting on a theoretical base. This paper examines the surprisingly strong arguments that exist in terms of economic theory, for the use...

In this paper we solve for the optimal (Stickler) policy in a model of credibility and monetary policy developed by Cuckierman and Meltzer (1986). Unlike the (Nash) solution provided by Cuckierman and Meltzer the dynamic optimisation problem facing the monetary authority in this case is not a...

A specification test based on an Edgeworth expansion is proposed and some of its useful properties are noted. In particular the test has an important additivity property, in that a test for higher-order alternatives simply adds additional, asymptotically independent variates to tests lower order...

Most macroeconometric models are built with the objective, wholly or partly, of providing forecasts. The term "forecast" covers three rather distinct types of exercise : (a) genuine "ex-ante" forecasts, in which the model user predicts the actual future development of the economy, and for which...

An ‘efficiency wage’ model developed for Western economies is reinterpreted in the context of Stalin’s Russia, with imprisonment – not unemployment – acting as a ‘worker discipline device’. The threat of imprisonment allows the state to pay a lower wage outside the Gulag than...