A general equilibrium model of a small open economy is developed to analyze the optimal rate of inflation under discretion. Once agents’ welfare is the sole policy objective it is possible to show that openness and inflation no longer have a simple inverse relationship. A greater degree of openness may lead the policy maker to want to exploit the short-run Phillips curve more aggressively, even...

We explore the connection between shock observability and equilibrium. When aggregate shocks are unobserved the rational expectations solutions remain unchanged if contemporaneous aggregate outcomes are observable, but their stability under adaptive learning must be reconsidered. We obtain learning stability conditions and show that, provided there is not large positive expectational feedback, ...

When the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates binds, monetary policy cannot provide appropriate stimulus. We show that in the standard New Keynesian model, tax policy can deliver such stimulus at no cost and in a time-consistent manner. There is no need to use ine¢ cient policies such as wasteful public spending or future commitments to in‡ate. We conclude that in the New Keynesian model,...

This paper studies U.S. in‡ation adjustment speed to aggregate technology shocks and to monetary policy shocks in a medium size Bayesian VAR model. According to the model estimated on the 1959-2007 sample, in‡ation adjusts much faster to aggregate technology shocks than to monetary policy shocks. These results are robust to di¤erent identi…cation assumptions and measures of aggregate prices. Ho...

This paper shows that a zero-sum redistribution of wealth within a country can have persistent aggregate effects. Motivated by the case of an unanticipated inflation episode, we consider redistribution shocks that shift resources from old to young households. Aggregate effects arise because there are asymmetries in the reaction of winners and losers to changes in wealth. We focus on two sources...

This paper does two things. First, it shows both anecdotal and cross-country evidence that indicates that countries that have experienced hyperinflation display significantly lower long-term rates of inflation than countries that lack the same experience. Secondly, it presents a model to rationalize the main empirical finding. There is more than one mechanism through which the long-term effects...

We use a state-dependent model where pricing rules are optimal to examine the costs of a money-based disinflation under various assumptions about the credibility of the policy change. Our analysis allows us to relate actual credibility and future inflation inertia to the asymmetry of the price deviation distribution. An important implication of our statedependent setting is that disinflation ca...

This paper examines some of the characteristics of the foreign exchange market in the 1920s floating period. Nominal returns appear to exhibit properties consistent with asset prices on modern more well-organized financial markets; i.e. they appear to be well described by martingales and possess persistent time dependent heteroscedasticity. In order to deal with the extreme kurtosis in the exch...

In this paper we present new measures for the bias in an import price index due to outsourcing. The m easure is developed fi rst for a high ly simplif ied case for the purpose of conveying the rationale for the measure. It is then generalized, yielding a m eaasure that could b e used in empirical stu dies. Before taking up this bias measurement problem , however, we expl ain the m easurement co...