I use the valuation equation of government debt to understand fiscal and monetary policy in and following the great recession of 2008-2009, to think about whether the US is headed for a fiscal inflation, and what that inflation will look like. I emphasize that a fiscal inflation can come well...

This paper examines the fiscal and monetary policy options available to China as a sovereign currency-issuing nation operating in a dollar standard world. We first summarize a number of issues facing China, including the possibility of slower growth, global imbalances, and a number of domestic...

This paper estimates a nonlinear Threshold-VAR to investigate if a Keynesian liquidity trap due to a speculative motive was in place in the U.S. Great Depression and the recent Great Recession. We find clear evidence in favor of a breakdown of the liquidity effect after an unexpected increase in...

We present an incomplete markets model to understand the costs and benefits of increasing government debt when an increased demand for safety pushes the natural rate of interest below zero. A higher demand for safe assets causes the ZLB to bind, increasing unemployment. Higher government debt...

Sargent and Wallace (1981) published "Some Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic" 40 years ago. Their central message was that a central bank may not have the power to determine the long-run rate of inflation without fiscal support. In a policy regime where the fiscal authority is non-Ricardian, an...

I study the effects of long-run inflation and income taxation in an economy where households face uninsurable idiosyncratic risks. I construct a tractable competitive search framework that generates dispersion of prices, income and wealth. I analytically characterize the stationary equilibrium...