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Working Paper
MoNK: Mortgages in a New-Keynesian Model
We propose a tractable framework for monetary policy analysis in which both short- and long-term debt affect equilibrium outcomes. This objective is motivated by observations from two literatures suggesting that monetary policy contains a dimension affecting expected future interest rates and thus the costs of long-term financing. In New-Keynesian models, however, long-term loans are redundant assets. We use the model to address three questions: what are the effects of statement vs. action policy shocks; how important are standard New- Keynesian vs. cash flow effects in their transmission; ...
Working Paper
Real Rigidities, Firm Dynamics, and Monetary Nonneutrality: The Role of Demand Shocks
We propose a parsimonious framework for real rigidities, in the form of strategic complementarities, that can generate real and nominal dynamics and match key features of the data across several literatures. Existing menu-cost models featuring strategic complementarities require unrealistically volatile shocks to idiosyncratic productivity to be consistent with pricing moments. We develop a simple menu-cost model with strategic complementarities along with idiosyncratic productivity and demand shocks that are disciplined by the data. This approach allows us to overcome previous criticism from ...
Working Paper
Policy Paradoxes in the New Keynesian Model
The most common New-Keynesian model--with sticky-prices--has potentially implausible implications in a zero-lower bound environment. Fiscal and forward guidance multipliers can be implausibly large. Moreover, the sticky-price model implies that positive supply shocks, such as an increase in productivity, will lower production, and that increased price flexibility can exacerbate such a decline in output (as well as amplifying the effects of other shocks). These results are fragile and disappear under a plausible alternative to sticky prices--sticky information: Fiscal and monetary multipliers ...
Working Paper
The Effects of Price Endings on Price Rigidity: Evidence from VAT Changes
We document a causal role for price endings in generating micro and macro price rigidity. Based on micro price data underlying the consumer price index in Israel, we document that most stores have a favored price ending?a final digit, usually a zero or nine, used by a majority of prices in that store?and that these favored price endings are utilized extensively. Using changes to the VAT rate as exogenous cost shocks that affect prices regardless of ending, we find that the frequency of price adjustment for nonfavored endings increases by twice as much as the frequency of adjustment for ...
Working Paper
Price dispersion and inflation: new facts and theoretical implications
From a macroeconomic perspective, price rigidity is often perceived to be an important source of price dispersion, with significant implications for the dynamic properties of aggregate variables, welfare calculations, and the design of optimal policy. For instance, in standard New Keynesian models, the key cost of business cycles stems from the price dispersion resulting from firms' inability to adjust prices instantaneously. However, different macroeconomic models make conflicting predictions about the level of price dispersion, as well as about its dynamic properties and sensitivity to ...
Working Paper
Nominal rigidities in debt and product markets
Standard models used for monetary policy analysis rely on sticky prices. Recently, the literature started to explore also nominal debt contracts. Focusing on mortgages, this paper compares the two channels of transmission within a common framework. The sticky price channel is dominant when shocks to the policy interest rate are temporary, the mortgage channel is important when the shocks are persistent. The first channel has significant aggregate effects but small redistributive effects. The opposite holds for the second channel. Using yield curve data decomposed into temporary and persistent ...