Abstract This paper examines five possible explanations for the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, using data for the United States and the eurozone. Of these five hypotheses, four are not supported by the data, while the fifth appears reasonable.

Abstract Monetary policy is superneutral in an overlapping generations model. Previous authors have argued that superneutrality does not hold in such a setting. However, the standard results rely on the counter-factual premise of helicopter money and are overturned if money creation through open...

Abstract The effective federal funds rate is determined in a competitive interbank market, while the target federal funds rate represents a policy variable. This paper proposes a theory of the determination of the effective funds rate. According to the main result, the latter is a Lagrange...