We propose a near-rational model of retail price adjustment consistent with microeconomic and macroeconomic evidence on price dynamics. Our framework is based on the idea that avoiding errors in decision making is costly. Given our assumed cost function for error avoidance, the timing of...

This paper proposes two models in which price stickiness arises endogenously even though fi rms are free to change their prices at zero physical cost. Firms are subject to idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks, and they also face a risk of making errors when they set their prices. In our fi rst...

We study simple fiscal rules for stabilizing the government debt level in response to asymmetric demand shocks in a country that belongs to a currency union. We compare debt stabilization through tax rate adjustments with debt stabilization through expenditure changes. While rapid and flexible...

This paper studies the effects of delegating control of sovereign debt issuance to an independent authority in a monetary union where public spending decisions are decentralized. The model assumes that no policy makers are capable of commitment to a rule. However, consistent with Rogoff (1985)...

In a search and matching environment, this paper assesses a range of modeling setups against macro evidence for the monetary transmission mechanism in the euro area. In particular, we assess right-to-manage vs. efficient bargaining, flexible vs. sticky wages, interactions at the firm level...

In light of the huge cross-country differences in job losses during the recent crisis, we study how labor market duality - meaning the coexistence of "temporary" contracts with low firing costs and "permanent" contracts with high firing costs - affects labor market volatility. In a model of job...

In this paper, we show that a simple model of smoothly state-dependent pricing generates a distribution of price adjustments similar to that observed in microeconomic data, both for low and high inflation. Our setup is based on one fundamental assumption: price adjustment is more likely when it...

This paper considers a dynamic matching model with imperfectly observable worker effort. In equilibrium, the wage distribution is truncated from below by a no-shirking condition. This downward wage rigidity induces the same type of inefficient churning and "contractual fragility" as in Ramey and...

This paper analyzes the effects of monetary shocks in a DSGE model that allows for a general form of smoothly state-dependent pricing by firms. As in Dotsey, King, and Wolman (1999) and Caballero and Engel (2007), our setup is based on one fundamental property: firms are more likely to adjust...