We study the relation between inflation and real activity over the business cycle. We employ a Trend-Cycle VAR model to control for low-frequency movements in inflation, unemployment, and growth that are pervasive in the post-WWII period. We show that cyclical fluctuations of inflation are...

Existing high-frequency monetary policy shocks explain surprisingly little variation in stock prices and exchange rates around FOMC announcements. Further, both of these asset classes display heightened volatility relative to non-announcement times. We use a heteroskedasticity-based procedure to...

Do "real" assets protect against inflation? Core inflation betas of stocks are negative while energy betas are positive; currencies, commodities, and real estate also mostly hedge against energy inflation but not core. These hedging properties are reflected in the prices of inflation risks: only...

This paper combines new data and a narrative approach to identify shocks to political pressure on the Federal Reserve. From archival records, I build a data set of personal interactions between U.S. Presidents and Fed officials between 1933 and 2016. Since personal interactions do not...

We review the literature on multi-horizon currency risk premiums. We show how the multi-horizon implications arise from the classic present-value relationship. We further show how these implications manifest themselves in the interaction between bond and currency risk premiums. This link is...

In this paper we revisit the Canadian experience with floating exchange rates since 1950. Canada was a pioneer in successfully adopting a floating exchange rate during the Bretton Woods pegged exchange rate regime. Since then, most advanced countries have followed the Canadian example

In this paper I analyze the work on exchange rates and external imbalances by University of Chicago faculty members during the university's first hundred years, 1892-1992. Many people associate Chicago's views with Milton Friedman's advocacy for flexible exchange rates. But, of course, there was...

Our current inflation stemmed from a fiscal shock. The Fed is slow to react. Why? Will the Fed's slow reaction spur more inflation? I write a simple model that encompasses the Fed's mild projections and its slow reaction, and traditional views that inflation will surge without swift rate rises....

For decades, households' subjective expectations elicited via surveys have been considered meaningless because they often differ substantially from the forecasts of professionals and ex-post realizations. In sharp contrast, the literature we review shows household characteristics and the ways in...

We study a model where households make decisions according to a dual-process framework widely used in cognitive psychology. System 1 uses effortless heuristics but is susceptible to biases and errors. System 2 uses mental effort to make more accurate decisions. Through their pricing behavior,...