This paper studies an advantage of commitment over discretion when a central bank observes only noisy measures of current inflation and output, in the context of an optimizing model with nominal-price stickiness. Under a commitment regime, if current policy turns out to be too expansionary (contractionary) because of the bank’s information problem, subsequent policies should be slightly contrac...

This paper analyzes some new tests of the Cagan hyperinflation–money demand model which have several advantages relative to those in the literature. They do not confound specification error with rational bubbles, can be implemented with a linear procedure, and are frequently able to detect periodically collapsing bubbles which have challenged existing tests. After a Monte Carlo analysis, the te...

This paper uses over two years of weekly scanner data from two small US cities to characterize time and state dependence of grocers’ pricing decisions. In these data, the probability of a nominal adjustment declines with the time since the last price change even after controlling for heterogeneity across store-product cells and replacing sale prices with regular prices. We also detect state dep...

——————————————————————————————————— We develop a model where agents can allocate their wealth between a liquid asset, which can be used to purchase consumption goods, and an illiquid asset, which represents a better store of value. Should a consumption opportunity arise, agents may visit a frictional “over-the-counter” secondary asset market where they can exchange illiquid for liquid assets. W...

A number of recent studies examining historical experiences with deflation have called into question the widely-held view that maintains deflation is economically harmful. These studies contend that a broad, historical perspective reveals a more nuanced view of deflation, one that requires taking seriously both malign and benign deflation. This paper builds on these findings by taking an in-dep...

In models with complete markets, targeting core inflation enables monetary policy to maximize welfare by replicating the flexible price equilibrium. We develop a two-sector new-Keynesian model to evaluate different inflation targeting rules in economies with financial frictions. We conclude that, in the presence of financial frictions, a welfaremaximizing central bank should adopt flexible head...

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 equilibrium determination under different monetary policy regimes when the government might default on its debt. We apply a cash-inadvance model where the government does not have access to non-distortionary taxation and does not account for initial outstanding debt when it sets the income tax rate. Solvency is then not guaranteed and sovereign default can affect the return ...

This paper develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with sticky prices where agents have imperfect information on the stance and direction of monetary policy. Agents respond by using Kalman filtering to unravel persistent and temporary monetary policy changes in order to form optimal forecasts of future policy actions. Our results show that a sticky price model with imperf...