Several authors suggest that trust is an important determinant of cooperation between strangers in a society, and therefore of performance of social institutions. We argue that trust should be particularly important for the performance of large organizations. In a cross-section of countries,...

This paper examines the international experiences with four basic types of monetary policy regimes: 1) exchange-rate targeting, 2) monetary targeting, 3) inflation targeting, and 4) monetary policy with an implicit but not an explicit nominal anchor. The basic theme that emerges from this...

We review the fast-growing work on salience and economic behavior. Psychological research shows that salient stimuli attract human attention "bottom up" due to their high contrast with surroundings, their surprising nature relative to recalled experiences, or their prominence. The Bordalo,...

This paper attempts to provide a perspective on the causes of inflation by exploring why sustained inflations occur and the role of monetary policy in the inflation process. The conclusion reached in this paper is that in the last ten years there has been a convergence of views in the economics...

Several recent studies find that ex ante real returns for short-term U.S. Treasury securities are negatively correlated both with inflation and with nominal interest rates. This paper examines whether these findings extend to the short-term holding return on publicly and privately issued...

Although recent research suggests that intergenerational transfers play an important role in aggregate capital accumulation, our understanding of bequest motives remains incomplete. We develop a simple model of"exchange-motivated" bequests, in which a testator influences the decisions ofhis...

A heated debate has arisen over what Modigliani has dubbed the Macro Rational Expections (MRE) hypothesis. This hypothesis embodies two component hypotheses: 1) rational expectations and 2) short-run neutrality -- i.e., that anticipated changes in aggregate demand will have already been taken...

This paper analyzes an important class of models in which expectations play an important role. Topics included in the analysis are tests of: (1) rationality of forecasts in either market or survey data, (2) capital market efficiency, (3) the short-run neutrality of monetary policy and, (4)...