We study optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a model with heterogeneous agents, incomplete markets, and nominal rigidities. We develop numerical techniques to approximate Ramsey plans and apply them to a calibrated economy to compute optimal responses of nominal interest rates and labor tax...

We develop a theory of endogenous and stochastic fluctuations in economic activity. Individual firms choose to randomize over firing or keeping workers who performed poorly in the past to give them an ex-ante incentive to exert effort. Different firms choose to correlate the outcome of their...

This paper studies monetary policy in a model where output fluctuations are caused by shocks to public beliefs on the economy's fundamentals. I ask whether monetary policy can offset the effect of these shocks and whether this offsetting is socially desirable. I consider an environment with...