Macroeconomic models typically assume additively separable preferences where consumption enters the utility function in a logarithmic form. This restriction implies that consumption growth is highly sensitive to movements in real interest rates, which in turn implies an unrealistically steep...

Macroeconomic models typically assume additively separable preferences where consumption enters the utility function in a logarithmic form. This restriction implies that consumption growth is highly sensitive to movements in real interest rates, which in turn implies an unrealistically steep...

Macroeconomic models typically assume additively separable preferences where consumption enters the utility function in a logarithmic form. This restriction implies that consumption growth is highly sensitive to movements in real interest rates, which in turn implies an unrealistically steep...

Cancellation of income and substitution effect implied by King-Plosser-Rebelo (1988) preferences breaks tight coefficient restriction between the slope of the Phillips curve and the elasticity of consumption with respect to real interest rate in a sticky price macro model. This facilitates the...

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, a thorough presentation of the state of the art of the New Keynesian Macroeconomic model is provided. A discussion of its empirical caveats follows and some recent extensions of the standard model are evaluated in more detail. Second, a key...

We develop an experimental production economy to study the general equilibrium and welfare effects of speculation and stabilization policies. Participants playing the role of household-investors interact in labor, output, and, in some treatments, asset markets. Without the ability to trade...

Communication targeting households and firms has become a stand-alone policy tool of many central banks. But which forms of communication, if any, can reach ordinary people and manage their economic expectations effectively? In a large-scale randomized control trial, we show that communication...

The empirical effectiveness of economic policies that operate theoretically through similar channels differs substantially. We document this fact by comparing an easy-to-grasp expectations-based policy, unconventional fiscal policy, with a policy whose implications are harder to understand by...

Binding lower bounds on interest rates and large government deficits limit the scope of fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate households' spending through financial intermediaries and firms. Policymakers have thus been implementing unconventional policies that aim to increase households'...

Intertemporal substitution is at the heart of modern macroeconomics and finance as well as economic policymaking, but a large fraction of a representative population of men - those below the top of the distribution by cognitive abilities (IQ) - do not change their consumption propensities with...