We introduce "smooth diagnosticity." Under smooth diagnosticity, agents over-react to new information defined as the difference between the current information set and a previous information set. Since new information typically changes not just the conditional mean, but also the conditional...

Most governments are mandated to maintain their economies at full employment. We propose that the best marker of full employment is the efficient unemployment rate, u*. We define u* as the unemployment rate that minimizes the nonproductive use of labor--both jobseeking and recruiting. The...