In this paper we investigate the foundations of forward guidance in the light of the theory of controllability in a strategic context. The announcement of future suitable policies can facilitate the control of the economic system by the policymaker, where the term 'control' is used in the sense...

In this paper we aim at two targets: i) to look for the theoretical roots of the EMU institutions and to check whether the current economic doctrine still supports them; ii) to discuss the appropriateness of these institutions and the policies adopted by European policymakers in order to exit...

After Smith’s statement of the market virtues the process of gestation of economic policy as a consistent set of rules for public agenda has been rather slow. Until not so long ago economic policy as a discipline was confined to prescribing practical rules intended to explain technical...

Questo lavoro intende mettere in luce sia l’evoluzione subita dal pensiero economico negli ultimi decenni sia gli orientamenti concreti dell’azione pubblica, con il proposito di coglierne i nessi reciproci. L’indagine si sofferma in particolare sulle ragioni che portarono ad una pronta...

L’ambiente per sua natura è un bene pubblico e la sua tutela richiede, quindi, qualche tipo d’intervento. L’uso delle risorse naturali per attività economiche, anziché a fini di protezione ambientale, ad esempio, può essere regolato a livello di comunità locale per evitare un...

The paper sketches some features of Caffè’s contribution to the construction, diffusion and applications of economic policy as a discipline, in addition to his personal traits and his qualities as a teacher. Not only was he one of the main proponents in Italy of the study of welfare economics...

In this paper we construct a general theory of forward guidance in economic policy making, in order to provide a framework to explain the role and strategic advantages of including forward guidance as an explicit part of policy design. We do this by setting up a general policy problem in which...

The theory of economic policy has its roots in the contributions of Tinbergen and Theil, who solved the problem of a policymaker aiming to achieve certain values for his policy targets, or to minimize a loss function defined on those targets, by using the available policy instruments. After...

By using the recent Gertler and Kiyotaki's (2010) setup, this paper explores the interaction between real distortions stemming from the labor market institutions and financial shocks. We find that neither labor market imperfections nor fiscal institutions determining tax wedges have an impact on...

We challenge the widely held belief that New Keynesian models cannot predict an optimal positive inflation rate. In fact we find that even for the US economy, characterized by relatively small government size, optimal trend inflation is justified by the Phelps argument that the inflation tax...