""Of All the Economic Bubbles that have been pricked," the editors of the Economist recently observed, "few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself." Indeed, the financial crisis that crested in 2008 destroyed the credibility of the economic thinking that had guided...

I study how the general and specific details of a micro founded monetary framework affect the determination of policy when the government has limited commitment. The conduct of policy depends on the interaction between the incentive to smooth distortions intertemporally and a time-consistency...