We challenge the widely held belief that New-Keynesian models cannot predict optimal positive inflation rates. In fact these are justified by the Phelps argument that monetary financing can alleviate the burden of distortionary taxation. We obtain this result because, in contrast with previous...

This paper investigates the effects of cooperation (corporatism) on macroeconomic performance by considering a rather standard policy game between the government and a monopoly union. We stress the shortcomings of the traditional way used to model cooperation in policy games (the maximization of...

The conservative central banker has come under attack recently. On the basis of models in which there is explicit interaction between trade union behavior and monetary policy, it has been argued that if 'trade unions' are averse to inflation, welfare will be lower with a conservative than with a...

In this paper we use a standard multi-union, monopolistic competition model to investigate the qualitative and quantitative responses of inflation and unemployment to monetary policy activism under different institutional arrangements in the labor market, which are defined by the rigidity of...

A popular argument in favour of price stability is that the inflation-tax burden would disproportionately fall on the poor because wealth is unevenly distributed and portfolio composition of poorer households is skewed towards a larger share of money holdings. We reconsider the issue in a DSGE...

In the workhorse DSGE model, the optimal steady state in flation rate is near to zero or slightly negative and infl ation is almost completely stabilized along the business cycle (Schmitt-Grohè and Uribe, 2011). We reconsider the issue, allowing for agent heterogeneity in the access to the...

This paper examines the effect of monopolistic labour unions' behaviour on governments' incentives to undertake labour market reform, inside and outside a symmetric and an asymmetric monetary union (MU). Incentives for reform are increased inside the MU when governments and labour unions move...

Existing work on wage bargaining (as exemplified by Cukierman and Lippi, 2001) typically predicts more aggressive wage setting under monetary union. This insight has not been confirmed by the EMU experience, which has been characterised by wage moderation, thereby eliciting criticism from Posen...

A perceived need to increase nominal wage flexibility as a substitute for domestic monetary policy and a tendency to less wage moderation are likely to promote bargaining coordination and social pacts in the EMU. But such coordination is not likely to be sustainable in the long run, as it...

The "conservative central banker" has come under attack recently. Explicitly modeling the interaction of a trade union with monetary policy, it has been argued that the standard solution to the inflationary bias in monetary policy might actually be welfare reducing if the trade union has an...