While the degree of policy inertia in central banks' reaction functions is a central ingredient in theoretical and empirical monetary economics, the source of the observed policy inertia in the United States is controversial, with tests of competing hypotheses, such as interest-smoothing and...

We evaluate explanations for the absence of disinflation during the Great Recession and find popular explanations to be insufficient. We propose a new explanation for this puzzle within the context of a standard Phillips curve. If firms' inflation expectations track those of households, then the...

This paper studies the small estimated effects of monetary policy shocks from standard VARs versus the large effects from the Romer and Romer (2004) approach. The differences are driven by three factors: the different contractionary impetus, the period of reserves targeting, and lag length...

This paper reexamines the evidence on the border effect. We argue that if there is cross-country heterogeneity in the distribution of within-country price differentials, there is no clear benchmark from which to gauge the effect of a border. In the absence of a structural model or a (natural)...

Globalization brings opportunities and pressures for domestic firms in emerging markets to innovate and improve their competitive position. Using data from 27 emerging market economies, we estimate the effects of foreign competition and linkages with foreign firms on innovation by domestic...