Rational expectations are often used as a strong argument against policy activism, as they may undermine or neutralize the policymaker’s actions. Although this sometimes happens, rational expectations do not always imply policy invariance or ineffectiveness. In fact, in certain circumstances...

This paper attempts to give a rationale to public announcements, so often observed in the real world, and to formalize the idea that they can be used as a form of equilibrium selection device when multiple equilibria arise. It also shows how announcements solve the problems of coordination...

We study the relationship between equilibrium existence and uniqueness in LQ-games, and the classical theory of economic policy. By focusing on system controllability, we find necessary conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium that generalize results in the existing...

This paper shows the relationship between static controllability (well-known as Tinbergen's golden rule) and the existence and other properties of the Nash equilibrium in a dynamic setting augmented with rational expectations (RE) for future behavior. We derive new theorems which state...

Recent developments in macroeconomics resurrect the view that welfare costs of inflation arise because the latter acts as a tax on money balances. Empirical contributions show that wage re-negotiations take place while expiring contracts are still in place. Bringing these seemingly unrelated...

Empirical contributions show that wage re-negotiations take place while expiring contracts are still in place. This is captured by assuming that nominal wages are pre-determined. As a consequence, wage setters act as Stackelberg leaders, whereas in the typical New Keynesian model the...

In this paper we use a standard multi-union, monopolistic competition model to evaluate analytically and numerically the effects of monetary policy on inflation and unemployment under different institutional arrangements in the labor market that are defined by the rigidity of nominal wages. We...

This paper outlines the evolution of the theory of economic policy from the classical contributions of Ragnar Frisch, Ian Tinbergen, Bent Hansen, Henri Theil to recent work in the field of strategic interaction. The new, emerging theory of economic policy, albeit rooted in the classical...