With integrated trade and financial markets, a collapse in aggregate demand in a large country can cause "natural real interest rates" to fall below zero in all countries, giving rise to a global "liquidity trap." This paper explores the optimal policy response to this type of shock, when...

The macroeconomic theories and models favoured by academics, as well as those used more commonly by policymakers, effectively rule out by assumption economic and financial crises of the sort we are living through. In particular, the longer run dangers posed by the rapid expansion of credit and...

Remarks before the Dallas Friday Group, Dallas, Texas, October 21, 2011 ; "Absent some shock, I envision a slow but steady improvement in the economy into 2012. That is, if our fiscal authorities will remove their stranglehold on clarifying fiscal initiatives. If not, then, in my view, I expect...

Remarks before the Dallas Friday Group, Dallas, Texas, April 11, 2006 ; "Competition brings benefits to the public sector the same way it does the private sector. Because factors of production are increasingly mobile in an era of globalization, governments vie to gain and hold onto them. Mobile...

Remarks to the 2007 Annual Conference of the Investment Adviser Association, Austin, Texas, April 26, 2007 ; "Many options would improve the fiscal fitness of our entitlement system and reduce the need for drastic action elsewhere in the federal budget. But let's be honest. These remedies work...

Remarks before a luncheon meeting of the Manhattan Institute and e21, New York City, January 12, 2011 ; "The key to correcting the underperformance of the American economy and American job creation does not rest with the Federal Reserve. It is in the hands of those who make fiscal and regulatory...

We consider the fiscal multiplier and spillover in an environment in which two countries are caught simultaneously in a liquidity trap. Using an optimizing two-country sticky price model, we show that the fiscal multiplier and spillover are contrary to those predicted in textbook economics. For...

The macroeconomic response to the economic crisis has revived old debates about the usefulness of monetary and fiscal policy in fighting recessions. Without the ability to further lower interest rates, policy authorities in many countries have turned to expansionary fiscal policies. Recent...

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy rules in a monetary union. The focus of the analysis is on the interaction between the fiscal policy of member countries (regions) and the central monetary authority. When capital markets are integrated, the fiscal policy of one country will...

This paper examines the role of fiscal stabilization policy in a two-country framework that allows for a general degree of exchange rate pass-through. I derive analytical solutions for optimal monetary and fiscal policy which are shown to depend on the degree of pass-through. In the case of...