While examining the macroeconomic effects of government tax and punishment policies, this paper develops a three-sector general equilibrium model featuring matching frictions and worker-firm wage bargaining. Workers are assumed to differ in ability, and the choice of education is determined...

While examining the macroeconomic effects of increased government control of the informal sector, this paper develops a two-sector general equilibrium model featuring matching frictions and worker-firm wage bargaining. Different goods are produced in the formal sector and the informal sector,...

This paper discusses the reasons for Brazil.s high policy real interest rates by considering two opposing views, the orthodox and heterodox approaches. While orthodox authors defend the position that bad domestic policies are the cause of the high interest rate, heterodox economists claim that...

In Africa’s least developed countries (LDCs), escape from poverty and convergence to livingstandards of more advanced economies depends critically on structural transformation and theemergence of productive entrepreneurship that would accelerate growth and job creation. So far,however,...

Recent research has found that the dynamic properties of the New Keynesian model can be very different when the nominal interest rate is zero. Improvements in technology and reductions in the labor tax rate lower economic activity, and the size of the government purchase output multiplier can be...

A vast literature has emerged using Taylor rules to analyze monetary policy Although very attractive both theoretically and empirically such rules imply a mechanical response by the policy variable to fundamental ones This study looks for empirical evidence of a more sophisticated monetary...

We derive necessary and suffcient conditions for simple monetary policy rules that guarantee equilibrium determinacy in the New Keynesian monetary model. Our modeling framework is derived from a fully specified optimization model that is still amenable to analytical characterisation. The...

We develop a New Keynesian model with staggered price and wage setting where downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) arises endogenously through the wage bargaining institutions. It is shown that the optimal (discretionary) monetary policy response to changing economic conditions then becomes...

This paper contributes to the recent debate about the estimated high partial adjustment coefficient in dynamic Taylor rules, commonly interpreted as deliberate interest rate smoothing on the part of the monetary authority. We argue that a high coefficient on the lagged interest rate term may be...

This paper estimates the path of inflation persistence in the United States over the last 50 years and draws implications about the evolution of the Federal Reserve's monetary-policy preferences. Standard models of central bank optimization predict that the central bank's preference for output...