This paper presents a simple general equilibrium model of optimal taxation in which both private agents and the government can default on their debt. As a benchmark we consider Ramsey equilibria in which the government can precommit to its policies at the beginning of time, but in which private...

We show that some classes of sterilized interventions have no effect on equilibrium prices and quantities. The proof does not require complete markets, Ricardian equivalence, monetary neutrality, or the law of one price. Moreover, regressions of exchange rates or interest differentials on...

During the Second Industrial Revolution, 1860–1900, many new technologies, including electricity, were invented. These inventions launched a transition to a new economy, a period of about 70 years of ongoing, rapid technical change. After this revolution began, however, several decades passed...

Bulow and Rogoff (1989b) show that as long as governments can earn the market rate of return by saving abroad, standard reputation models cannot support debt. We argue that these standard reputation models are partial in the sense that actions of agents in one arena affect reputation in that...

In the data, prices change both temporarily and permanently. Standard Calvo models focus on permanent price changes and take one of two shortcuts when confronted with the data: drop temporary changes from the data or leave them in and treat them as permanent. We provide a menu cost model that...

We analyze the optimal design of monetary rules. We suppose there is an agreed upon social welfare function that depends on the randomly fluctuating state of the economy and that the monetary authority has private information about that state. We suppose the government can constrain the policies...

We evaluate the ability of models with putty-clay capital and stochastic energy prices to account for the dynamics of energy use and output. Economists have noted a close relationship between changes in the price of energy and changes in output. Moreover, they have documents that this...

Time-varying risk is the primary force driving nominal interest rate differentials on currency-denominated bonds. This finding is an immediate implication of the fact that exchange rates are roughly random walks. We show that a general equilibrium monetary model with an endogenous source of risk...

We study transition in a model in which the process of moving workers from matches in the state sector to new matches in the private sector takes time and involves uncertainty. When there are incentive problems in this rematching process, the optimal scheme may involve forced layoffs,...

The United States is indisputably undergoing a financial crisis. Here we examine four claims about the way the financial crisis is affecting the economy as a whole and argue that all four claims are myths. Conventional analyses of the financial crisis focus on interest rate spreads. We argue...