Search Results
Working Paper
Incomplete Credit Markets and Monetary Policy
We study monetary policy when private credit markets are incomplete. The macroeconomy we study has a large private credit market, in which participant households use non-state contingent nominal contracts (NSCNC). A second, small group of households only uses cash, supplied by the monetary authority, and cannot participate in the credit market. There is an aggregate shock. We find that, despite the substantial heterogeneity, the monetary authority can provide for optimal risk-sharing in the private credit market and thus overcome the NSCNC friction via a counter-cyclical price level rule. The ...
Working Paper
Growth Effects of Progressive Taxation
Criticisms of endogenous growth models with flat rate taxes have highlighted two features that are not substantiated by the data. These models generally imply: (1) that economic growth must fall with the share of government expenditures in output across countries, and (2) that one-time shifts in marginal tax rates should instantaneously lead to similar shifts in output growth. In contrast, we show that allowing for heterogenous households and progressive taxes into otherwise conventional linear growth models radically changes these predictions. In particular, economic growth does not have to ...
Working Paper
Optimal Monetary Policy for the Masses
We study nominal GDP targeting as optimal monetary policy in a simple and stylized model with a credit market friction. The macroeconomy we studyhas considerable income inequality, which gives rise to a large private sector credit market. There is an important credit market friction because households participating in the credit market use non-state contingent nominal contracts (NSCNC). We extend previous results in this model by allowing for substantial intra-cohort heterogeneity. The heterogeneity is substantial enough that we can approach measured Gini coefficients for income, financial ...
Working Paper
Nominal GDP Targeting With Heterogeneous Labor Supply
We study nominal GDP targeting as optimal monetary policy in a model with a credit market friction following Azariadis, Bullard, Singh and Suda (2018), henceforth ABSS. As in ABSS, the macroeconomy we study has considerable income inequality which gives rise to a large private sector credit market. Households participating in this market use non-state contingent nominal contracts (NSCNC). We extend the ABSS framework to allow for endogenous and heterogeneous household labor supply among credit market participant households. We show that nominal GDP targeting continues to characterize optimal ...
Working Paper
Optimal Monetary Policy for the Masses
We study nominal GDP targeting as optimal monetary policy in a simple and stylized model with a credit market friction. The macroeconomy we study has considerable income inequality, which gives rise to a large private sector credit market. There is an important credit market friction because households participating in the credit market use non-state contingent nominal contracts (NSCNC). We extend previous results in this model by allowing for substantial intra-cohort heterogeneity. The heterogeneity is substantial enough that we can approach measured Gini coefficients for income, financial ...
Working Paper
Optimal Monetary Policy for the Masses
We study nominal GDP targeting as optimal monetary policy in a simple and stylized model with a credit market friction. The macroeconomy we study has considerable income inequality, which gives rise to a large private sector credit market. There is an important credit market friction because households participating in the credit market use non-state contingent nominal contracts (NSCNC). We extend previous results in this model by allowing for substantial intra-cohort heterogeneity. The heterogeneity is substantial enough that we can approach measured Gini coefficients for income, financial ...
Working Paper
Limited (Energy) Supply, Monetary Policy, and Sunspots
In a simple New Keynesian open economy setting, we analyze how local input shortages influence policy transmission and equilibrium determinacy. Shortages increase the elasticity of the local price of the scarce factor to domestic economic activity, affecting the cyclicality of marginal costs and incomes. As a result, the slope of both the Phillips and the IS curve is altered, crucially influencing monetary and fiscal policy transmission. These changes are affected by factor ownership and propensities to consume. Theoretically, shortages can also raise the risk of self-fulfilling fluctuations ...