This paper considers the intertemporal consumption/savings decision when income follows a random walk with drift and the drift coefficient is unknown. Instead agents are Bayesian learners, combining prior and sample information to form a posterior for the drift coefficient and future income....

We examine how private sector agents might learn a new monetary strategy that is adopted while at the ELB. Little can be discovered until the economy improves enough that rates would be near liftoff under the old strategy. Recessionary shocks would thus delay learning while large inflationary...