In New Keynesian models nominal rigidities determine socially ineffi - cient outcomes. Our paper reverses this view: properly designed monetary policies may take advantage of predetermined nominal wages to discipline monopolistic wage setters. This, in turn, requires accepting a non-zero in-...

This paper generalizes the classical theory of economic policy to a static LQ-strategic context between n players. We show how this generalized version of controllability can profitably be used to deal with policy ineffectiveness issues and Nash equilibrium existence.

This paper develops and estimates a simple New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with rule-of-thumb consumers and external habits. Our theoretical model has a closed-form solution which allows the analytical derivation of its dynamical and stability properties. These...

In a unionized economy with endogenous fiscal policy central bank transparency has two contrasting effects on wages, the relative strength of which determines the macroeconomic performance. This finding allows us to demonstrate that (i) if the central bank is populist the effect of transparency...

This paper studies the institutional design of the coordination of macroeconomic stabilization policies within a monetary union in the framework of linear quadratic differential games. A central role in the analysis plays the partitioned game approach of the endogenous coalition formation...

This paper investigates the effects of cooperation (corporatism) on macroeconomic performance by considering a rather standard policy game between the government and a monopoly union. We stress the shortcomings of the traditional way used to model cooperation in policy games (the maximization of...

Recent developments in macroeconomics resurrect the view that wel- fare 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...

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...