This paper evaluates the prospects for the emerging field of neuroeconomics to shed light on traditional positive and normative economic questions. It argues that the potential for meaningful contributions, though often misunderstood and frequently overstated, is nevertheless present

A model is proposed in which stochastic choice results from noise in cognitive processing rather than random variation in preferences. The mental process used to make a choice is nonetheless optimal, subject to a constraint on available information-processing capacity that is partially motivated...

We investigate the feasibility of inferring the choices people would make (if given the opportunity) based on their neural responses to the pertinent prospects when they are not engaged in actual decision making. The ability to make such inferences is of potential value when choice data are...

We investigate the hypothesis that macroeconomic fluctuations are primitively the results of many microeconomic shocks, and show that it has significant explanatory power for the evolution of macroeconomic volatility. We define "fundamental" volatility as the volatility that would arise from an...

The response of aggregate labor supply to various changes in the economic environment is central to many economic issues, especially the optimal design of tax policies. This paper surveys recent work that uses structural models and micro data to evaluate the size of this response. Whereas the...

We use a micro-founded macroeconometric modeling framework to investigate the design of monetary policy when the central bank faces uncertainty about the true structure of the economy. We apply Bayesian methods to estimate the parameters of the baseline specification using postwar U.S. data, and...

We review recent evidence on price rigidity from the macroeconomics literature, and discuss how this evidence is used to inform macroeconomic modeling. Sluggish price adjustment is a leading explanation for large effects of demand shocks on output and, in particular, the effects of monetary...

A synthesis of the Lucas-Prescott island model and the Mortensen- Pissarides matching model of unemployment is studied. By assumption, all unmatched workers and jobs are randomly assigned to islands at the beginning of each period and the number of matches that form on a particular island is the...

We address the exchange rate determination puzzle by examining how information is aggregated in a dynamic general equilibrium (DGE) setting. Unlike other DGE macro models, which enrich either preference structures or production structures, our model enriches the information structure. The model...

This paper develops a general theory of aggregation in inefficient economies. We provide non-parametric formulas for aggregating microeconomic shocks in economies with distortions such as taxes, markups, frictions to resource reallocation, financial frictions, and nominal rigidities. We allow...