Empirical evidence shows that observed macroeconomic fundamentals have little explanatory power for nominal exchange rates (the exchange rate determination puzzle). On the other hand, the recent "microstructure approach to exchange rates" has shown that most exchange rate volatility at short to...

While empirical evidence finds only a weak relationship between nominal exchange rates and macroeconomic fundamentals, forex markets participants often attribute exchange rate movements to a macroeconomic variable. The variables that matter, however, appear to change over time and some variable...

In this paper, we examine formally Keynes' idea that higher order beliefs can drive a wedge between an asset price and its fundamental value based on expected future payoffs. In a dynamic noisy rational expectations model, higher order expectations add an additional term, which we call the...

Standard models of tax evasion implicitly assume that evasion is either fully detected, or not detected at all. Empirically, this is not the case, casting into doubt the traditional rationales for interior evasion choices. I propose two alternative, dynamic explanations for interior tax evasion...

Starting with Krugman (1980), much literature has analyzed how trade liberalization affects the economy based on the notion that trade is motivated by consumer's love of variety. In this paper, I augment these preferences by the determinants of demand for heterogeneous products. The model...

It is often argued that capital should flow from aging industrialized economies to countries with fast-growing populations. However, institutional failures and the risk of expropriation substantially reduce developing economies' attractiveness for foreign investors. We analyze the influence of a...

Monetary policy is most effective when public beliefs about future policies are actively managed. This is the appeal of policy rules and commitment strategies, typically absent under discretion. But when a policymaker has some private information - as is the case in reality - belief management...

I analyze how lack of commitment affects the maturity structure of sovereign debt. Governments balance benefits of default induced redistribution and costs due to income losses in the wake of a default. Their choice of short- versus long- term debt affects default and rollover decisions by...

No, not really. Responding to lingering concerns about the reliability of SVARs, Christiano et al (NBER Macro Annual, 2006, "CEV") propose to combine OLS estimates of a VAR with a spectral estimate of long-run variance. In principle, this could help alleviate specification problems of SVARs in...