Under rational expectations, monetary policy is generally highly effective in stabilizing the economy. Aggregate demand management operates through the expectations hypothesis of the term structure: Anticipated movements in future short-term interest rates control current demand. This paper...

This paper proposes a theory of the fiscal foundations of inflation based on imperfect knowledge and learning. The theory is similar in spirit to, but distinct from, unpleasant monetarist arithmetic and the fiscal theory of the price level. Because the assumption of imperfect knowledge breaks...

This paper analyzes how the formation of expectations constrains monetary and fiscal policy design. Economic agents have imperfect knowledge about the economic environment and the policy regime in place. Households and firms learn about the policy regime using historical data. Regime uncertainty...

This paper examines how the scale and composition of public debt can affect economies that implement a combination of passive monetary policy and active fiscal policy. This policy configuration is argued to be of both historical and contemporary interest in the cases of the U.S. and Japanese...

New Keynesian theory identifies a set of principles central to the design and implementation of monetary policy. These principles rely on the ability of a central bank to manage expectations precisely, with policy prescriptions typically derived under the assumption of perfect information and...

We estimate the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) - the elasticity of expected consumption growth with respect to variation in the real interest rate - using subjective expectations from the newly released FRBNY Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE). This dataset is unique, since it...

The goal of this paper is to present the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model developed and used at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The paper describes how the model works, how it is estimated, how it rationalizes past history, including the Great Recession, and how it is...

We study the term structure of disagreement of professional forecasters for key macroeconomic variables. We document a novel set of facts: 1) forecasters disagree at all horizons, including the very long run; 2) the shape of the term structure of disagreement differs markedly across variables:...

This paper explores the effects of central bank transparency on the performance of optimal inflation targeting rules. I assume that both the central bank and the private sector face uncertainty about the correct model of the economy and have to learn. A transparent central bank can reduce one...

This paper examines the performance of forecast-based nonlinear Taylor rules in a class of simple microfunded models. The paper shows that even if the policy rule leads to a locally determinate (and stable) inflation target, there exist other learnable 'global' equilibria such as cycles and...