The main section of this paper discusses competing theories of aggregate supply that are currently being utilized in macroeconomic models with rational expectations. The distinction between flexible-price equilibrium models and models with nominal contracts is emphasized and three models of the...

A Keynesian idea of considerable historical importance is that, in the presence of a liquidity trap, a competitive economy may lack--despite price flexibility--automatic market mechanisms that tend to eliminate excess supplies of labor. The standard classical counterargument, which relies upon...

This paper conducts a theoretical comparison of the potential effectiveness, in terms of money stock controllability, of interest rate and reserve instruments. Whereas previous studies have been basically static, the present analysis is carried out in the context of a dynamic macroeconomic model...

Many macroeconomic models involving rational expect at ions give rise to an infinity of solution paths, even when the models are linear in all variables. Some writers have suggested that this non-uniqueness constitutes a serious weakness for the rational expectations hypothesis. One purpose of...

This paper reconsiders a result obtained by Sargent and Wallace, namely, that price level indeterminacy obtains in their well-known model if the monetary authorities adopt a policy feedback rule for the interest rate rather than the money stock. Since the Federal Reserve seems often to have used...

Consider a rational expectations (RE) model that includes a relationship between variables `x_t` and `z_(t+1)`. To be considered structural and potentially useful as a guide to actual behavior, this model must specify whether `x_t` is influenced by the expectation at t of `z_(t+1)` or,...

In analyses of "liquidity trap" problems associated with the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates, it is important to emphasize the difference between policy rule changes, intended to help escape an existing ZLB situation, and maintained policy rules designed so as to avoid ZLB...

This paper presents a prototype model for development of the fiscal theory of the price level.' In this simple setting, the fiscal theory's distinctiveness relies upon adoption of a bubble solution, rather than the rational-expectations fundamentals solution. The paper then shows that the fiscal...

This paper explores the relationship between the closely linked concepts of E-stability and least-squares learnability, featured in recent work by Evans and Honkapohja (1999, 2001), and the minimum-state-variable (MSV) solution defined by McCallum (1983) and used by many researchers for rational...

This paper discusses four current topics in monetary policy analysis, each of which hinges on the possibility of multiple solutions in rational expectations (RE) models. In three of these cases--involving inflation forecast targeting, the zero-lower bound deflation trap, and the fiscal theory of...