Understanding factors that drive asset demand is central to explaining movements in long-term real interest rates. In this paper, we begin by documenting that much of the increase in the demand for assets in the US in the 30 years prior to Covid represented greater desire to hold assets by...

We develop a heterogeneous agent, overlapping generations model with nonhomothetic preferences that nests several explanations for the decline in the natural rate of interest (r∗) suggested in the literature: demographic change, a slowdown in productivity growth, a rise in income inequality,...

This paper bridges the gap between two popular approaches to estimating the natural rate of unemployment, u*. The first approach uses detailed labor market indicators, such as labor market flows, cross-sectional data on unemployment and vacancies, or various measures of demographic changes. The...

Using a wide range of models we document a protracted fall in the natural (or neutral) rate of interest in advanced economies, driven by ageing, waning productivity growth, a rise in mark-ups, and a surge in risk aversion in the wake of the global financial crisis. While our neutral rate...

We propose a new method to estimate the unobservable natural real rate of interest in the United States (US). We begin by describing the natural rate in the New Keynesian model and then theoretically linking its evolution to both demand and supply-side shocks hitting the US economy. Our results...

This study applies the concept of pattern-based inflation expectations to the measurement of U.S. real rates of interest. The measure of expected inflation builds on a laboratory-based survey of expectations. We show how our measures of real interest rates differ from measures based on the...

This paper studies the empirical relationship between the Federal funds effective rate and the rate of profit or profit-to-capital ratio in the U.S. economy. The linkages between these two variables are studied: 1) at business-cycle frequencies using various filters and employing...