Economic research in recent years has given considerable prominence to the issue of whether a floating exchange rate provides autonomy with regard to monetary policy to a central bank whose economy is highly open. In particular, Rey (2016) has argued that inflation-targeting advanced economies...

"Recent fiscal policies have aimed to stimulate household spending. In 2008, most households received one-time economic stimulus payments. In 2009, most working households received the Making Work Pay tax credit in the form of reduced withholding; other households, mainly retirees, received...

In this paper, I examine the effects of a countercyclical fiscal policy that gave firms additional tax refunds -- additional liquidity -- at the end of the past two recessions. I take advantage of a discontinuity in the slope of the tax refund formula to estimate the policy's impact. I find that...

We study optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a New Keynesian model where occasional declines in agents' confidence give rise to persistent liquidity trap episodes. There is no straightforward recipe for enhancing welfare in this economy. Raising the inflation target or appointing an...