We argue that the vast bulk of movements in aggregate real economic activity during the Great Recession were due to financial frictions interacting with the zero lower bound. We reach this conclusion looking through the lens of a New Keynesian model in which firms face moderate degrees of price...

Mankiw and Reis (2002) have proposed sticky information as an alternative to Calvo sticky prices in order to model the conventional view that i) inflation reacts with delay and gradually to a monetary policy shock, ii) announced and credible disinflations are contractionary and iii) inflation...

The paper assesses, using seven structural models used heavily by policymaking institutions, the effectiveness of temporary fiscal stimulus. Models can, more easily than empirical studies, account for differences between fiscal instruments, for differences between structural characteristics of...