We show that firms' nominal required returns to capital (i.e., their discount rates) are sticky with respect to expected inflation. Such nominally sticky discount rates imply that increases in expected inflation directly lower firms' real discount rates and thereby raise real investment. We...

I discuss private and central-bank-issued digital currencies, summarizing my prior research. I argue that prices of private digital currencies such as bitcoin follow random walks or, more generally, risk-adjusted martingales. For central bank digital currencies, I argue that they enhance the...

The narrative approach to macroeconomic identification uses qualitative sources, such as newspapers or government records, to provide information that can help establish causal relationships. This paper discusses the requirements for rigorous narrative analysis using fresh research on the impact...

We show that if the central bank operates without commitment and faces constraints on its balance sheet, helicopter drops can be a useful stabilization tool during a liquidity trap. With commitment, even with balance sheet constraints, helicopter drops are irrelevant

Our current inflation stemmed from a fiscal shock. The Fed is slow to react. Why? Will the Fed's slow reaction spur more inflation? I write a simple model that encompasses the Fed's mild projections and its slow reaction, and traditional views that inflation will surge without swift rate rises....

We study how US consumers' house price expectations respond to verbal and non-verbal communication about interest rate changes using several large online surveys. Verbal communication about interest rate hikes leads to little response of average house price expectations but large heterogeneity...

This paper studies how household inequality shapes the effects of the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates on aggregate dynamics. To do so, we consider a heterogeneous agent New Keynesian (HANK) model with an occasionally binding ZLB and solve for its fully non-linear stochastic...

The European Central Bank is unique in setting monetary policy for several sovereign states with heterogeneous debt levels and different maturity structures. The monetary-fiscal nexus is central to the functioning of the euro area. We focus on one particular aspect of that nexus, the effect the...

In a collaborative project with ten central banks, we have investigated the causes of the post-pandemic global inflation, building on our earlier work for the United States. Globally, as in the United States, pandemic-era inflation was due primarily to supply disruptions and sharp increases in...

We develop a novel method for the identification of monetary policy shocks. By applying natural language processing techniques to documents that Federal Reserve staff prepare in advance of policy decisions, we capture the Fed's information set. Using machine learning techniques, we then predict...