Inflation expectations of households and firms are central determinants in all dynamic macro models. Yet, empirical evidence suggests these decision makers form expectations in a way that deviates from the assumptions in these models: on average, inflation expectations are biased upwards, are...

The fiscal theory says that the price level is determined by the ratio of nominal debt to the present value of real primary surpluses. I analyze long-term debt and optimal policy in the fiscal theory. I find that the maturity structure of the debt matters. For example, it determines whether news...

Using randomized control trials (RCTs) applied over time in different countries, we study how the economic environment affects how agents learn from new information. We show that as inflation has recently risen in advanced economies, both households and firms have become more attentive and...

This article provides a methodology to test absolute and relative price convergence (in mean and variance) based on a model of relative prices that includes a transition path, and offers a way to measure the speed of price convergence across countries. By applying this test to the European...

We have studied the comparative performance of a number of interest rate spreads as predictors of the German inflation and business cycle in the post Bretton Woods era. The two-regime Markov switch model that we used as a nonlinear filter allows the dynamic behavior of the economy to vary...

Milton Friedman said that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Most people, when they think of inflation, think in terms of the goods and services that they buy. In fact, Friedman’s dictum can be extended to include inflated home prices, stock prices, commodity prices, or...

It is commonly believed that a monetary policy that targets the price level reduces the long-term variability of the price level but only at the cost of increased variability in both inflation and output. This paper shows that this result may not hold so long as increases in the real rate of...

This paper examines the role of aggregate productivity and money supply shocks in determining the relationship between inflation and the distribution of relative commodity prices. I estimate a restricted VAR that includes aggregate variables and individual commodity prices, and compute the...

Using the Johansen cointegration technique, we find empirical evidence of long run co-movements between five national stock market indexes and measures of aggregate real activity including the real oil price, real consumption, real money, and real output. Real returns on these indexes are...