This paper addresses two questions: (i) how do governments actually pay for the fiscal costs associated with currency crises; and (ii) what are the implications of different financing methods for post-crisis rates of inflation and depreciation? We study these questions using a general...

We provide empirical evidence that a positive shock to technology drives per capita hours worked, consumption, investment, average productivity and output up. This evidence contrasts sharply with the results reported in a large and growing literature that argues, on the basis of aggregate data,...

We present a model embodying moderate amounts of nominal rigidities which accounts for the observed inertia in inflation and persistence in output. The key features of our model are those that prevent a sharp rise in marginal costs after an expansionary shock to monetary policy. Of these...

This paper investigates the impact on aggregate variables of changes in government consumption in the context of a stochastic, neoclassical growth model. We show, theoretically, that the impact on output and employment of a persistent change in government consumption exceeds that of a temporary...

No, and maybe not. [additional text from author's introduction] To us, the possibility of providing a compelling case that real GMP is either trend or difference stationary seems extremely small, certainly on the basis of post-war data. This is because there is only one difference between these...

Some booms in housing prices are followed by busts. Others are not. It is generally difficult to find observable fundamentals that are useful for predicting whether a boom will turn into a bust or not. We develop a model consistent with these observations. Agents have heterogeneous expectations...

This paper analyzes the quality of VAR-based procedures for estimating the response of the economy to a shock. We focus on two key issues. First, do VAR-based confidence intervals accurately reflect the actual degree of sampling uncertainty associated with impulse response functions? Second,...

Macroeconomic and microeconomic data paint conflicting pictures of price behavior. Macroeconomic data suggest that inflation is inertial. Microeconomic data indicate that firms change prices frequently. We formulate and estimate a model which resolves this apparent micro - macro conflict. Our...

This paper analyzes the role of variable capital utilization rates in propagating shocks over the business cycle. To this end we formulate and estimate an equilibrium business cycle model in which cyclical capital utilization rates are viewed as a form of factor hoarding. We find that variable...

This paper presents new empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that positive money supply shocks drive short-term interest rates down. We then present a quantitative, general equilibrium model which is consistent with the hypothesis. The two key features of our model are that (i) money...