It is common to analyze the effects of alternative monetary policy commitments under the assumption of fully model-consistent expectations. This implicitly assumes unrealistic cognitive abilities on the part of economic decision makers. The relevant question, however, is not whether the...

This paper extends the benchmark New-Keynesian model by introducing two frictions: (1) agent heterogeneity with incomplete markets, uninsurable idiosyncratic risk, and occasionally binding borrowing constraints; and (2) bounded rationality in the form of level-k thinking. Compared to the...

This paper presents a framework for analyzing how bounded rationality affects monetary and fiscal policy. The model is a tractable and parsimonious enrichment of the widely-used New Keynesian model – with one main new “cognitive discounting” parameter, which quantifies how poorly agents...

We develop a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for equilibria to be determinate in a class of forward-looking Markov-switching rational expectations models and we develop an algorithm to check these conditions in practice. We use three examples, based on the new-Keynesian model of...

We estimate a Heterogeneous-Agent New Keynesian model with sticky household expectations that matches existing microeconomic evidence on marginal propensities to consume and macroeconomic evidence on the impulse response to a monetary policy shock. Our estimated model uncovers a central role for...

How does the economy respond to news about future policies or future fundamentals? Standard practice assumes that agents have common knowledge of such news and face no uncertainty about how others will respond. Relaxing this assumption attenuates the general-equilibrium effects of news and...

This paper examines the predictive power of shifts in monetary policy, as measured by changes in the federal funds rate, for output, inflation, and survey expectations of these variables. We find that policy shifts have larger effects on actual output than on expected output, suggesting that...

Recent mainstream monetary policy analysis focuses on rational expectation solutions that are uniquely stable. A number of recent studies have examined the question of whether typical New Keynesian (NK) models, with policy rules that satisfy the Taylor principle, also exhibit solutions with...

I analyze an extension of the New Keynesian model that features overlapping generations of finitely-lived agents and (stochastic) transitions to inactivity. In contrast with the standard model, the proposed framework allows for the existence of rational expectations equilibria with asset price...

This paper reviews and contrasts different views about the role of expectations in policy research and practice. Recently, two widely different views seem to have dominated the analysis of policy questions.One view, which is referred to as the "new classical macroeconomic"view, is that...