Two puzzling observations have motivated this paper: First, the standard paradigm of optimal fiscal policy, following Lucas & Stokey (1983), assumes counterfactually that public debt is held in state-contingent securities. Is the existing theory as irrelevant as it is silent about fiscal policy...

This paper revisits the macroeconomic effects of government consumption in the neoclassical growth model augmented with idiosyncratic investment (or entrepreneurial) risk. Under complete markets, a permanent increase in government consumption has no long-run effect on the interest rate, the...

Many argue that crises - such as currency attacks, bank runs and riots - can be described as times of non-fundamental volatility. We argue that crises are also times when endogenous sources of information are closely monitored and thus an important part of the phenomena. We study the role of...

This paper argues that adding endogenous information aggregation to situations where coordination is important - such as riots, self-fulfilling currency crises, bank runs, debt crises or financial crashes - yields novel insights into the multiplicity of equilibria. Morris and Shin (1998) have...

This paper studies the optimal trade-off between commitment and flexibility in an intertemporal consumption/savings choice model. Individuals expect to receive relevant information regarding their own situation and tastes - generating a value for flexibility - but also expect to suffer from...

We introduce a neoclassical growth economy with idiosyncratic production risk and incomplete markets. Each agent is an entrepreneur operating her own neoclassical technology with her own capital stock. The general equilibrium is characterized in closed form. Idiosyncratic production shocks...

We introduce a Ramsey growth model with incomplete markets, decentralized production, and idiosyncratic technological risk. The combination of uninsurable shocks with the precautionary motive can slow down capital accumulation or give rise to persistent fluctuations even when agents are very...

What are the welfare effects of the information contained in macroeconomic statistics, central-bank communications, or news in the media? We address this question in a business-cycle framework that nests the neoclassical core of modern DSGE models. Earlier lessons that were based on “beauty...

Different beliefs about how fair social competition is and what determines income inequality, influence the redistributive policy chosen democratically in a society. But the composition of income in the first place depends on equilibrium tax policies. If a society believes that individual effort...

We examine how credit constraints affect the cyclical behavior of productivity-enhancing investment and thereby volatility and growth. We first develop a simple growth model where firms engage in two types of investment: a short-term one and a long-term productivity-enhancing one. Because it...