We develop methods to solve general equilibrium models in which forward-looking agents are subject to waves of pessimism, optimism, and uncertainty that turn out to critically affect macroeconomic outcomes. Agents in the model are fully rational, conduct Bayesian learning, and they know that...

We show that policy uncertainty about how the rising public debt will be stabilized accounts for the lack of deflation in the US economy at the zero lower bound. We first estimate a Markov-switching VAR to highlight that a zero-lower-bound regime captures most of the comovements during the Great...

We develop and estimate a general equilibrium model to quantitatively assess the effects and welfare implications of central bank transparency. Monetary policy can deviate from active inflation stabilization and agents conduct Bayesian learning about the nature of these deviations. Under...