We consider a simple variant of the standard real business cycle model in which shareholders hire a self-interested executive to manage the firm on their behalf. Delegation gives rise to a generic conflict of interest mediated by a convex (option-like) compensation contract which is able to...

The sensitivity of U.S. aggregate investment to shocks is procyclical: the initial response increases by approximately 50% from the trough to the peak of the business cycle. This feature of the data follows naturally from a DSGE model with lumpy microeconomic capital adjustment. Beyond...

I present an undetermined coefficients method for obtaining a linear approximating to the solution of a dynamic, rational expectations model. I also show how that solution can be used to compute the model's implications for impulse response functions and for second moments

We introduce the information microstructure of a canonical noisy rational expectations model (Hellwig, 1980) into the framework of a conventional real business cycle model. Each household receives a private signal about future productivity. In equilibrium, the stock price serves to aggregate and...

We incorporate diagnostic expectations, a psychologically founded model of overreaction to news, into a workhorse business cycle model with heterogeneous firms and risky debt. A realistic degree of diagnosticity, estimated from the forecast errors of managers of US listed firms, creates...

Micro- and macro-level evidence indicates that fluctuations in idiosyncratic uncertainty have a large effect on investment; the impact of uncertainty on investment occurs primarily through changes in credit spreads; and innovations in credit spreads have a strong effect on investment,...

The current account dynamics is examined for a small open economy which is subject to exogenous changes in its static terms of trade and in world interest rates. The model used is one with overlapping finite-lived generations, which we argue gives rise to a more reasonable saving behaviour than...

We explore the implications of current account adjustment for monetary policy within a simple two-country DSGE model. Our framework nests Obstfeld and Rogoff's (2005) static model of exchange rate responsiveness to current account reversals. It extends this approach by endogenizing the dynamic...

We find evidence of threshold behavior in current account adjustment for the G7 countries, such that the dynamics of adjustment towards equilibrium depend upon whether the current-account/ net-output ratio breaches estimated, country specific current account surplus or deficit thresholds. Both...

Three of the most important recent facts in global macroeconomics -- the sustained rise in the US current account deficit, the stubborn decline in long run real rates, and the rise in the share of US assets in global portfolio -- appear as anomalies from the perspective of conventional wisdom...