Remarks at the Quarterly Regional Economic Press Briefing, New York City.

Remarks at Panel Discussion at 2012 U.S. Monetary Policy Forum, New York City.

This paper studies the welfare effects of monetary and fiscal policy rules, in a dynamic general equilibrium model with sticky prices. The model features capital accumulation and endogenous labor effort, and exogenous productivity shocks. Government purchases are valued positively by the private...

The natural rate of interest -- the real interest rate consistent with output equaling potential -- plays an important role in both economic forecasting and monetary policy. Much of the literature has assumed that the natural rate of interest is constant. For example, the Taylor rule includes a...

Eliminating the federal budget deficit, even assuming a correspondingly higher national rate, is likely to yield only a modest reduction in the U.S. international trade deficit. Balancing the federal budget will help improve the trade balance through the effects of lower levels of aggregate...

We document aggregate income growth uncertainty at the state level, and the extent to which this uncertainty is reduced by risksharing through financial markets and federal fiscal policy. A methodology is adopted that is closely connected to the empirical growth literature. It does not rely on...