There is widespread disagreement about the role of housing wealth in explaining consumption.  This paper exploits liquid and illiquid wealth time series from household balance sheet data for South Africa, previously constructed by the authors, to explain fluctuations in the ratios of...

In models with a representative infinitely lived household, modern versions of tax smoothing imply that the steady-state of government debt should follow a random walk.  This is unlikely to be the case in OLG economies, where the equilibrium interest rate may differ from the policy-maker's rate...

This paper studies the efficient taxation of money and factor income in intertemporal optimizing growth models with infinite horizons, transaction costs technologies and flexible prices.  Second-best optimality calls for a positive inflation tax and a non-zero capital income tax when there are...

We examine the impact of different degrees of fiscal feedback on debt in an economy with nominal rigidities where monetary policy is optimal. We look at the extent to which different degrees of fiscal feedback enhances or detracts from the ability of the monetary authorities to stabilise output...

Much recent monetary policy literature has searched for structural models suitable for policy analysis that are both based on optimising microfoundations and consistent with the data, especially observed persistence in inflation and output. Few models do well on both criteria. We derive an...

Optimal monetary policy is sensitive to the Phillips curve specification used to represent the dynamics of inflation and output. Most recent literature has used a new Keynesian Phillips Curve based on Calvo pricing. This paper shows that this workhorse model is not robust to relatively minor...

This paper incorporates limited asset markets participation in dynamic general equilibrium and develops a simple analytical framework for monetary policy analysis. Aggregate dynamics and stability properties of an otherwise standard business cycle model depend nonlinearly on the degree of asset...

In a monetary policy model incorporating partial persistence in inflation it is shown that inflation bias is reduced and the response to shocks improved if the policy maker has a discount rate lower than its true social value. Thus a patient central banker is shown to be a third mechanism for...

In response to the Great Financial Crisis, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and many other central banks have adopted unconventional monetary policy instruments.  We investigate if one of these, purchases of long-term government debt, could be a valuable addition to conventional...

Inflation targeting central banks will be hampered without good models to assist them to be forward-looking.  Many current inflation models fail to forecast turning points adequately, because they miss key underlying long-run influences.  The world is on the cusp of a dramatic turning point in...