We study supply and demand shocks in a general disaggregated model with multiple sectors, factors, and input-output linkages, as well as downward nominal wage rigidities and a zero lower bound constraint. We use the model to understand how the COVID-19 crisis, an omnibus of supply and demand...

In most instances, the dynamic response of monetary and other policies to shocks is infrequent and lumpy. The same holds for the microeconomic response of some of the most important economic variables, such as investment, labor demand, and prices. We show that the standard practice of estimating...

Data show that sovereign risk reduces liquidity, increases funding cost and risk of banks highly exposed to it. I build a model that rationalizes this fact. Banks act as delegated monitors and invest in risky projects and in risky sovereign bonds. As investors hear rumors of increased sovereign...

This paper contributes to the policy evaluation literature by developing new strategies to study alternative policy rules. We compare optimal rules to simple rules within canonical monetary policy models. In our context, an optimal rule represents the solution to an intertemporal optimization...

This book examines new classical macroeconomics from a comparative and critical point of view that confronts the original texts and later comments as a first dimension of comparison. The second dimension appears in a historical context, since none of the new classical doctrines can be analyzed...

This chapter reviews and synthesizes our current understanding of the shocks that drive economic fluctuations. The chapter begins with an illustration of the problem of identifying macroeconomic shocks, followed by an overview of the many recent innovations for identifying shocks. It then...

We use a labor search model with heterogenous households and firms to study the efficacy of a wage subsidy during a pandemic, relative to enhancing unemployment benefits. A large proportion of the economy is forced to shut down, and firms in that sector choose whether to lay off workers or keep...

How should unemployment benefits vary in response to the economic crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic? We answer this question by computing the optimal unemployment insurance response to the COVID-induced recession.We compare the optimal policy to the provisions under the CARES Act-which...

This paper studies the interaction between epidemiological dynamics and the dynamics of economic activity in a demand-driven model in the structuralist/post-Keynesian tradition. On the one hand, rising aggregate demand increases the contact rate and therefore the probability of exposure to a...

We investigate the optimal response of unemployment insurance to economic shocks, both with and without commitment. The optimal policy with commitment follows a modified Baily-Chetty formula that accounts for job search responses to future UI benefit changes. As a result, the optimal policy with...