A number of studies have documented a reduction in aggregate macroeconomic volatility beginning in the early 1980s. Using an empirical model of business cycles, we extend this line of research to state-level employment data and find significant heterogeneity in the timing and magnitude of the...

Monetary policy has significant but overlooked effects on entry and exit of firms. We study optimal monetary stabilization policy in a DSGE model with microfounded money demand and endogenous firm entry. Due to a congestion externality affecting firm entry, the optimal policy deviates from the...

In this paper we provide international evidence on the issue of whether the optimizing IS equation is more stable than a backward-looking alternative. The international evidence consist of estimates of IS equations on quarterly data for the UK and Australia, both for the full sample of the last...

Monetary policy VARs typically presume stability of the long-run outcomes. We introduce the possibility of switches in the long-run equilibrium in a cointegrated VAR by allowing both the covariance matrix and weighting matrix in the error-correction term to switch. We find that monetary policy...

With rare exception, studies of monetary policy tend to neglect the timing of the innovations to the monetary policy instrument. Models which do take timing seriously are often difficult to compare to standard VAR models of monetary policy because of the differences in the frequency that they...

We use a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to address two questions about U.S. monetary policy: 1) Can monetary policy elevate output when it is below potential? and 2) Is the zero lower bound a trap? The model answer to the first question is yes it can, but the effect is only...