This paper shows that price rigidity evolves in an economy populated by imperfectly rational agents who experiment with alternative rules of thumb. In the model, firms must set their prices in face of aggregate demand shocks. Their payoff depends on the level of aggregate demand, as well as on...

We review the recent work on interest rate setting, which emphasizes the desirability of designing policy to ensure stability under private agent learning. Appropriately designed expectations based rules can yield optimal rational expectations equilibria that are both determinate and stable...

We investigate both the rational explosive inflation paths studied by McCallum (2001) and the classification of fiscal and monetary policies proposed by Leeper (1991) for stability under learning of rational expectations equilibria (REE). Our first result is that the fiscalist REE in the model...

We consider a heterogenous expectations model where some agents are adaptive learners while others are rational. We consider three optimal monetary policy rules when the central bank either does not influence expectations or does influence expectations of learners or does influence expectations...

A striking implication of the replacement of adaptive expectations by Rational Expectations was the "Lucas Critique," which showed that expectation parameters, and endogenous variable dynamics, depend on policy parameters. We consider this issue from the vantage point of bounded rationality,...

This paper analyzes monetary policy in a model with a potential unanchoring of inflation expectations. The degree of unanchoring is given by how sensitively the public’s long-run inflation expectations respond to inflation surprises. I find that optimal policy moves the interest rate...

Expectations play a crucial role in modern macroeconomic models. We consider a New Keynesian framework under a behavioral model of expectation formation and under rational expectations. Contrary to the rational model, the behavioral model predicts that inflation volatility can be lowered if the...

Markov-switching rational expectations (MSRE) models can yield fresh insights beyond what linear rational expectations (LRE) models have done for macroeconomics, as Davig and Leeper (2007) and Farmer, Waggoner and Zha (2009), among others, have noted and predicted. A lack of tractable...

This paper proposes a theory of the fiscal foundations of inflation based on imperfect knowledge and learning. The theory is similar in spirit to, but distinct from, unpleasant monetarist arithmetic and the fiscal theory of the price level. Because the assumption of imperfect knowledge breaks...

This paper analyzes monetary policy in a model with a potential unanchoring of inflation expectations. The degree of unanchoring is given by how sensitively the public's long-run inflation expectations respond to inflation surprises. I find that optimal policy moves the interest rate...