This paper explains the key factors that determine the effectiveness of government purchases as a means of increasing output and employment in New Keynesian models, through a series of simple examples that can be solved analytically. Delays in the adjustment of prices or wages can allow for...

This paper considers a general class of nonlinear rational-expectations models in which policymakers seek to maximize an objective function that may be household expected utility. We show how to derive a target criterion that is: (i) consistent with the model's structural equations, (ii) strong...

This paper reviews the theory of optimal monetary stabilization policy, with an emphasis on developments since the publication of Woodford (2003). The structure of optimal policy commitments is considered, both when the objective of stabilization policy is defined by an arbitrarily specified...

I present a generalization of the standard (full-information) model of state- dependent pricing in which decisions about when to review a firm's existing price must be made on the basis of imprecise awareness of current market conditions. The imperfect information is endogenized using a variant...

We study the effects of monetary disturbances in an economy in which sellers must deal with potential buyers in sequence, rather than being able to sell their goods in a Walrasian auction market. Because of the structure of trading assumed, the current state of demand is not revealed to sellers...

This paper proposes a general method for deriving an optimal monetary policy rule in the case of a dynamic linear rational-expectations model and a quadratic objective function for policy. A commitment to a rule of the type proposed results in a determinate equilibrium in which the responses to...

This paper argues that maintaining price stability requires not only commitment to an appropriate monetary policy rule, but an appropriate fiscal policy rule as well. 'Ricardian equivalence' does not imply that fiscal policy is irrelevant, except in the case of a certain class of policies...

This paper illustrates how fluctuations in aggregate economic activity can result from many small, independent shocks to individual sectors. The effects of the small independent shocks fail to cancel in the aggregate due to the presence of two non-standard assumptions: local interaction between...

Because inputs are scarce, marginal cost should be an increasing function of output. Without changes in this real marginal cost schedule, aggregate output can vary if and only if the markup of price over marginal cost varies. In this review, we discuss the extent to which observed fluctuations...