Capitalism since its inception has been marked by large fluctuations. The resulting episodic unemployment has been very costly. This paper provides an overview of alternative theories. Standard models (such as DSGE) have not provided insights into the causes of the fluctuations and the shocks...

Most macroeconomic crises, such as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, are associated with endogenous large changes in beliefs and understandings about the workings of the economy. Such downturns and crises are not consistent with the standard paradigm of a well-functioning competitive economy,...

This paper analyzes the economic impact of the pandemic, providing insights into the consequences of alternative policies. Our framework focuses on three key features: (a) Covid-19 is a sectoral shock of unknown depth and duration affecting some sectors and technologies more than others; (b)...

What can explain the large changes in aggregate demand that occur in the absence of any seemingly corresponding shock to the underlying state variables of the economy? We show that macroeconomic volatility can arise from dispersions of beliefs among agents. These dispersions give rise to bets...

We analyze global dynamics in the standard life-cycle model with production, showing that there can be a plethora of rational expectations dynamics, including "wobbly macro-dynamics". Depending on people's beliefs, the macroeconomy can bounce around infinitely, without converging, without...

This paper considers growth and fluctuations in a standard Overlapping Generations (OLG) model with rational expectations, with land (a non-produced asset), credit frictions, and endogenous growth. Under plausible conditions, there can be multiple momentary equilibria, with the multiplicity...

The present tax code implicitly treats profits and losses asymmetrically. The government shares in profits but firms bear full cost of losses. The paper argues that giving tax payments to firms suffering losses would decrease the volatility of the business cycle, reduce tax biases against small...