We use a dynamic game model of a two-country monetary union to study the impacts of an exogenous fall in aggregate demand, the resulting increase in public debt, and the consequences of a sovereign debt haircut for a member country or bloc of the union. In this union, the governments of...

We analyse the welfare properties of progressive income taxes in a stylized DSGE model of a currency union calibrated to the Eurozone. When the central bank follows a standard Taylor rule and volatility originates solely in productivity shocks, we find that considerable welfare gains can be...

Recent work on financial frictions in New Keynesian models suggest that there is a sizable spread between the risk-less interest rate and the borrowing rate. We analyze the optimal policy mix of monetary and fiscal authorities in a currency union with a country-specific credit spread by...

Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System diverging current account positions in Europe have prevailed. While the Southern and Western European countries have tended to run current account deficits, the current accounts of the Central and Northern European countries, in particular Germany,...

Inflation and earnings growth can push some tax payers into higher brackets in the absence of inflation-indexed schedules. Moreover, inflation may affect the composition of individuals' income sources. As a result, depending on the relative tax burden of labor and capital, inflation may decrease...

I examine how the effects of fiscal policy and forward guidance are shaped by preferences over wealth calibrated based on microeconomic evidence on household saving behavior and individual discount rates. The contractionary effect of a permanent cut in government expenditure implemented during a...