This paper presents a general equilibrium model of conflict based on a world populated by representative democracies. At the individual state level, when information regarding a leader's ability to defend the state against unavoidable conflict is valuable to voters, an incumbent leader seeking...

Controlling inflation is among the most important objectives of economic policy. By maintaining price stability, policy makers are able to reduce uncertainty, improve price-monitoring mechanisms, and facilitate more efficient planning and allocation of resources, thereby raising productivity....

The experience of the U.S. economy during the mid-1930s, when short-term nominal interest rates were continuously close to zero, is sometimes taken as evidence that monetary policy was ineffective and the economy was in a liquidity trap. Close examination of the historical policy record for the...

Compared to its central role in policy discussions in the United States and most other developed countries, the reliability of the measurement of the output gap has attracted relatively little academic study. Furthermore, both the academic literature and the debate among practitioners have...

This paper investigates the implications of noisy information regarding the measurement of economic activity for the evaluation of monetary policy. A common implicit assumption in such evaluations is that policymakers observe the current state of the economy promptly and accurately and can...

This paper examines the implications of family size heterogeneity for Ricardian households and employs survey data to determine whether or not individual household preferences towards taxation conform to the Ricardian model. Using a dynastic model of intergenerational linkages, we show that the...