This paper studies how the creation of a European Central Bank (ECB) will change the political economy of monetary policy in Europe. The twelve governors of the national Central Banks of the EEC have recently proposed a statute for the ECB which delineates its institutional structure. In this...

We present a framework for analyzing "model persuasion." Persuaders influence receivers' beliefs by proposing models (likelihood functions) that specify how to organize past data (e.g., on investment performance) to make predictions (e.g., about future returns). Receivers are assumed to find...

We study a propaganda campaign sponsored by the government against the main political challenger in the days preceding the 2015 Argentine runoff presidential election. Subjects in the treatment group watched an "ad" initially aired during soccer transmissions that was part of this campaign and...

We quantify the importance of non-monetary news in central bank communication. Using evidence from four major central banks and a comprehensive classification of events, we decompose news conveyed by central banks into news about monetary policy, economic growth, and separately, shocks to risk...

Starting from a set of facts on the timing of stock returns relative to Federal Reserve decision-making, I argue that informal communication - including unattributed communication -- plays a central role in monetary policy communication. This contrasts with the standard communications framework...

Narrative records in US newspapers reveal that about 70 percent of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members who served during the last 55 years are perceived to have had persistent policy preferences over time, as either inflation-fighting hawks or growth-promoting doves. The rest are...

We assess the power of forward guidance--promises about future interest rates--as a monetary tool in a liquidity trap using a quantitative incomplete-markets model. Our results suggest the effects of forward guidance are negligible. A commitment to keep future nominal interest rates low for a...

We conducted a field experiment in 165 high-poverty New York City middle schools to help students navigate a complex high school choice process and access higher-performing schools. Students in treatment schools were given a customized one-page list of proximate high schools with a graduation...