E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
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Fiscal Stimulus and Skill Accumulation over the Life Cycle
Using micro data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey and Current Population Survey, I document that government spending shocks affect individuals differently over the life cycle. -
Stress Relief? Funding Structures and Resilience to the Covid Shock
Funding structures affected the amount of financial stress different countries and sectors experienced during the spread of COVID-19 in early 2020. Policy responses targeting specific vulnerabilities were more effective at mitigating this stress than those supporting banks or the economy more broadly. -
(Un)Conventional Monetary and Fiscal Policy
We build a tractable New Keynesian model to study and compare four types of monetary and fiscal policy: policy rate adjustments, quantitative easing, lump-sum fiscal transfers and government spending. We find that tax-financed fiscal policy is more stimulative than debt-financed policy, and optimal policy coordination needs at least two of these four policy instruments. -
Gazing at r-star: A Hysteresis Perspective
Many explanations for the decline in real interest rates over the last 30 years point to the role that population aging or rising income inequality plays in increasing the long-run aggregate demand for assets. Notwithstanding the importance of such factors, the starting point of this paper is to show that the major change driving household asset demand over this period is instead an increased desire—for a given age and income level—to hold assets. -
Fiscal Policy in the Age of COVID-19: Does It “Get in All of the Cracks”?
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an atypical recession in which some sectors of the economy boomed and others collapsed. This required a unique fiscal policy reaction to both support firms and stimulate activity in sectors with slack. Was fiscal policy able to get where it was needed? Mostly, yes. -
Behavioral Learning Equilibria in New Keynesian Models
We introduce behavioral learning equilibria (BLE) into DSGE models with boundedly rational agents using simple but optimal first order autoregressive forecasting rules. The Smets-Wouters DSGE model with BLE is estimated and fits well with inflation survey expectations. As a policy application, we show that learning requires a lower degree of interest rate smoothing. -
The Central Bank’s Dilemma: Look Through Supply Shocks or Control Inflation Expectations?
When countries are hit by supply shocks, central banks often face the dilemma of either looking through such shocks or reacting to them to ensure that inflation expectations remain anchored. In this paper, we propose a tractable framework to capture this dilemma and then explore optimal policy under a range of assumptions about how expectations are formed. -
COVID-19 and Financial Stability: Practice Ahead of Theory
The COVID-19 pandemic uncovered policy challenges related to the economic measures that were taken to support the economy. Two years later, we attempt to identify the broader impact of these measures and research that needs to follow. -
Settlement Balances Deconstructed
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, public interest in the Bank’s balance sheet and, more specifically, the size of settlement balances, has grown. This paper deconstructs the concept of settlement balances and provides some context on their history, current state and possible future evolution.