How does informality in emerging economies affect the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy? To answer this question we construct a two-sector, formal-informal new Keynesian closed-economy. The informal sector is more labour intensive, is untaxed, has a classical labour market, faces high credit...

This document proposes a general macroeconomic framework to analyze the behavior of inflation. This approach has two characteristics. The first is the distinction of monetary regimes based on the number of shocks that have a permanent effect on the price level. When all shocks have a permanent...

This paper examines whether the low interest rate environment that has prevailed since the Great Recession has compelled banks to reach for yield. It is important to recognize that banks can take on a variety of risks that offer higher yields today but incur different forms of future losses....

Forecasts of inflation in the United States since the mid eighties have had smaller errors than in the past, but those conditional on commonly used variables cannot consistently beat the ones from univariate models. This paper shows through simple modifications to the classical monetary model...

This paper applies a novel approach to study the impact of different shocks on the price level. It uses a classical dichotomy model with monetary policy regime shifts at known dates. First, there was a regime dominated by money, afterwards a regime driven by the exchange rate and a third one...

This paper examines the implications of changing the expectations assumption that is embedded in nearly all current macroeconomic models. The paper substitutes measured or real expectations for rational expectations in an array of standard macroeconomic relationships, as well as in a DSGE model....

This paper examines the role of uncertainty shocks in a one-sector, representative-agent dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. When prices are flexible, uncertainty shocks are not capable of producing business cycle comovements among key macro variables. With countercyclical markups...

This paper examines the expectations behavior of individual responses in the Survey of Professional Forecasters, the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center survey of consumers, and the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters. It finds that the most robust feature of all of these...

This paper examines the expectations behavior of individual responses in the surveys of the Survey of Professional Forecasters and the University of Michigan's Survey Research Center. The paper finds that respondents consistently revise their forecasts of inflation, unemployment, and other key...

What drives the strong reaction of financial markets to central bank communication on the days of policy decisions? We highlight the role of two factors that we identify from highfrequency monetary surprises: news on future macroeconomic conditions (Delphic shocks) and news on future monetary...