Search Results
Working Paper
Output Hysteresis and Optimal Monetary Policy
We analyze the implications for monetary policy when deficient aggregate demand can cause a permanent loss in potential output, a phenomenon we term output hysteresis. In the model, the incomplete stabilization of a temporary shortfall in demand reduces the return to innovation, thus reducing total factor productivity growth and generating a permanent loss in output. Using a purely quadratic approximation to welfare under endogenous growth, we derive normative implications for monetary policy. Away from the zero lower bound (ZLB), optimal commitment policy sets interest rates to eliminate ...
Working Paper
A Behavioral Foundation for the Investment Wedge
Motivated by behavioral evidence, we develop a tractable method for incorporating competition neglect into a general equilibrium firm investment problem. Competition neglect causes firms to systematically underestimate the investment of their competitors. When we introduce competition neglect into a canonical RBC model, this friction acts like an investment wedge that causes over-investment at first, and under-investment later on. In contrast to a model with exogenous investment shocks, these dynamics are accompanied by a realistic variation in equity premia, even in the absence of financial ...
Journal Article
What Do Financial Officers Predict for Price Growth?
Survey responses from chief financial officers and other financial decisionmakers yield a new measure of inflation expectations. Rather than asking about expectations for overall inflation, this survey asks about expected price growth at each respondent’s business. Aggregating survey responses provides an economy-wide indicator that tracks well with actual core consumer price index inflation. Survey responses collected before and during the recent oil shock imply that core inflation could remain elevated this year if the historical relationship between financial officer expectations and ...
Journal Article
What Do Financial Officers Predict for the Labor Market?
Business leader surveys can be an important and reliable source for insights into future labor market conditions, particularly for expected wage growth. Survey responses from financial executives regarding their expectations for wages at their firms have closely tracked subsequent actual U.S. nominal wage growth since 2002, outperforming household survey projections in their accuracy. Estimates for this year point to continued nominal wage growth in 2026. Respondents also expect employment growth to moderate, though their projections reflect uncertainty regarding potential gains in workers’ ...
Journal Article
Does Monetary Policy Have Long-Run Effects?
Monetary policy is often regarded as having only temporary effects on the economy, moderating the expansions and contractions that make up the business cycle. However, it is possible for monetary policy to affect an economy’s long-run trajectory. Analyzing cross-country data for a set of large national economies since 1900 suggests that tight monetary policy can reduce potential output even after a decade. By contrast, loose monetary policy does not appear to raise long-run potential. Such effects may be important for assessing the preferred stance of monetary policy.
Working Paper
Incomplete Markets and Exchange Rates
We show imperfect risk-sharing within countries can reconcile the aggregate cyclicality of exchange rates in a two-country setting, i.e. the Backus-Smith puzzle, as long as exchange rates are sufficiently risky with respect to idiosyncratic states. In equilibrium, these exchange rate dynamics require that, despite a country experiencing higher consumption growth, idiosyncratic risk remains relatively elevated. Furthermore, we identify distinct roles for market incompleteness both within and across countries, to match key moments of exchange rates. Turning to household-level data, we measure ...
Working Paper
Asset Prices and Credit with Diagnostic Expectations
Using long-run cross-country panel data, we document that (i) contemporaneous credit growth strongly predicts contemporaneous equity returns with positive sign, and (ii) lagged credit growth strongly predicts contemporaneous equity returns with negative sign. This correlation reversal is robust to added controls for contemporaneous and lagged consumption growth and these credit factors have greater explanatory power than the consumption factors. We find that a general equilibrium model with financial frictions and rational expectations fails to match the empirically estimated sign on ...
Working Paper
A Behavioral Foundation for the Investment Wedge
Motivated by behavioral evidence, we develop a tractable method for incorporating competition neglect in a general equilibrium firm investment problem. Competition neglect causes firms to systematically underestimate the investment of their competitors. When we introduce competition neglect into a canonical RBC model, this friction acts like an investment wedge that causes overinvestment at first, and underinvestment later on. In contrast to a model with exogenous investment shocks, these dynamics are accompanied by realistic variation in equity premia, even in the absence of financial ...
Working Paper
A New Labor Market Stress Indicator
Recessions are periods where the labor market deteriorates rapidly. Supporting business conditions to prevent such deterioration is a core objective of policymakers. In this paper we construct a labor market stress indicator (LMSI) primarily based on state-level unemployment insurance claims data that are observable as often as at weekly frequency. By examining both the geographical spread and the depth of labor market stress buildup, we provide an early indicator whose main function is to alert policymakers of potential economic slowdowns. Because the majority (but not all) of these ...
Working Paper
Can Models with Idiosyncratic Risk Solve the Equity Premium Puzzle? Redux
Can idiosyncratic risk explain the equity premium? We revisit this question using a novel measure of imperfect risk sharing, implied by a large class of heterogeneous-agent models, constructed using household-level panel data. We identify a group of households – with relatively high income but low net worth – whose consumption is sufficiently volatile and risky to explain 94% of the observed U.S. Sharpe ratio. In contrast, the consumption dynamics of high net-worth individuals predict a negative Sharpe ratio and so do not constitute the relevant pricing factor, consistent with models ...