We construct the first algorithm for the perfect foresight solution of otherwise linear models with occasionally binding constraints, with fixed terminal conditions, that is guaranteed to return a solution in finite time, if one exists. We also provide a proof of the inescapability of the...

Am 10. Juni 2018 stimmen die Schweizer über die Volksinitiative 'Für krisensicheres Geld: Geldschöpfung allein durch die Nationalbank!' (Vollgeld-Initiative) ab. Die Initiative fordert, dass den Geschäftsbanken die Schaffung von elektronischem Geld untersagt wird. Neues Geld soll als...

We develop a business cycle model with gross flows of firm creation and destruction.The credit market is characterized by two frictions. First,entrepreneurs undergo a costly search for intermediate funding to create a firm. Second, upon a match, a costlystate-verification contract is set up....

This Occasional Paper analyses how significant expansions in central banks' mandates, roles and instruments can result in challenges to the independence of monetary policy. The paper reviews, in particular, some of the key challenges to central bank independence brought about by the global...

Using a new survey of European households, we study how exogenous variation in the macroeconomic uncertainty perceived by households affects their spending decisions. We use randomized information treatments that provide different types of information about the first and/or second moments of...

Introducing a new survey of U.S. firms' inflation expectations, we document key stylized facts involving what U.S. firms know and expect about inflation and monetary policy. The resulting time series of firms' inflation expectations displays unique dynamics, distinct from those of households and...

This paper develops a multi-period extension of the Lucas (1972) overlapping generations islandʺ model with endogenous monetary policy (based on the minimization of a loss function over inflation and output deviations) and stochastic realization of the allocationʺ of the young people across...

Irving Fisher's encounter with the Quantity theory of Money began in the 1890s, during the debate about bimetallism, and reached its high point in 1911 with the publication of The Purchasing Power of Money. His most important refinement of the theory, derived from his recognition of bank...

We study the effects and historical contribution of monetary policy shocks to consumption and income inequality in the United States since 1980. Contractionary monetary policy actions systematically increase inequality in labor earnings, total income, consumption and total expenditures....

The UK has experienced a dramatic increase in earnings and income inequality over the past four decades. We use detailed micro level information to construct quarterly historical measures of inequality from 1969 to 2012. We investigate whether monetary policy shocks played a role in explaining...