This paper presents a new framework for analyzing inequality that moves beyond the anonymity postulate. We estimate the determinants of sectoral choice and the joint distributions of outcomes across sectors. We determine which components of realized earnings variability are due to uncertainty and which components are due to components of human diversity that are forcastable by agents. Using our tools, we can determine how policies shift persons across sectors and outcome distributions across sectors.

In this paper, we analyze the distribution of TFP growth rates at the four-digit sectoral level for the United States. We find that, contrary to the usual assumption employed in the literature on business cycles theory, technological shocks are not normally distributed. Instead, a Lévy-stable distribution with a divergent variance returns a better fit to the data.

We show that dependence on foreign energy can increase economic instability by raising the likelihood of equilibrium indeterminacy, hence making it easier for fluctuations driven by self-fulfilling expectations to occur. This is demonstrated in a standard neoclassical growth model. Calibration exercises, based on the estimated share of imported energy in production for several countries, show that the degree of reliance on foreign energy for many countries can easily make an otherwise determinate and stable economy indeterminate and unstable.

Building on the theoretical prediction that income tax progressivity increases the speed of convergence in neoclassical, open-economy growth models, this paper asks whether tax progressivity is a potential source of differences across regions in convergence rates. In a sample of U.S. data, over the period 1920–1990, regional convergence and tax progressivity are found to be positively correlated, which supports the theoretical results. Moreover, some data on six OECD countries also accord with such a positive relationship. Overall, the model is successful in predicting the large range of available convergence estimates when the tax rate is elastic enough with respect to the tax base.

This note builds on recent work by Serletis and Shahmoradi [Macroeconomic Dynamics 9 (2005), 542–559] and estimates the AIM model at different degrees of approximation, using the same optimization procedures as in Gallant and Golub [Journal of Econometrics. 26 (1984), 295–321]. We estimate the models subject to regularity and provide a comparison between the different versions. We argue that the AIM(3) model estimated subject to global curvature currently provides the best specification for research in semiparametric modeling of consumer demand systems.

Weak separability is a key admissibility property in the Divisia approach to monetary aggregation. We test groups of U.K. household sector monetary assets for weak separability using new data underlying the Bank of England's benchmark revision of its household sector Divisia index. Nonparametric tests are used to identify four monetary asset groupings, which are weakly separable over all or almost all of the post-ERM period (1992:4–2005:1). We construct Divisia monetary aggregates for these four groupings and investigate their information content in two applications. The main findings are that Divisia money has direct effects on aggregate demand and that the growth rates of the nominal Divisia monetary aggregates Granger cause nominal output growth, but not inflation.

We incorporate imperfectly insured unemployment in the finance constrained economy proposed by Woodford (1986), by introducing unions and unemployment benefits financed by labor taxation. We show that this simple extension of the Woodford model changes drastically its stability conditions and local dynamics around the steady state. In fact, in contrast to related models in the literature, we find that, under constant returns to scale in production: (i) indeterminacy always prevails in the case of a unitary elasticity of substitution between capital and labor and (ii) flip and Hopf bifurcations occur for empirically credible elasticities of substitution between capital and labor, so that a rich set of dynamics may emerge at “realistic” parameters' values.

We study the conditions that guarantee equilibrium determinacy in a standard sticky price model augmented with a cost channel. A central bank that assigns some positive weight to the output gap in its reaction function makes the economy more prone to multiple equilibria relative to the standard case. The value of the threshold on the interest rate response to inflation is above one and depends on the fraction of firms that need to borrow their bills payment.

Recent literature on the design of optimal monetary policy has shown that deviations from price stability are small whenever prices are sticky. This paper reconsiders this issue by introducing capital accumulation in the model. Optimal monetary policy in this setup implies small deviations from price stability. The monetary authority optimally uses inflation as an explicit tax on monopolistic profits to reduce the price markup across states. Variable markup is achieved in this setup because the share of investment demand over output varies across states and in response to TFP shocks.

Using U.K. data that are consistent with utility maximizing behavior by consumers, we construct aggregates for both consumption goods (nondurables and services) and monetary assets that are consistent with economic aggregation theory. Using these aggregates and the stock of durable goods, we estimate the elasticities of substitution between various consumption goods and monetary assets. These estimates are compared to the corresponding results from conventional monetary and consumption aggregates. The results give important information for monetary policy and the monetary transmission mechanism. In particular, these substitution estimates provide insight into the recent changes in expenditure on durable goods. We also show that the use of conventional U.K. consumption and monetary aggregates often give incorrect estimates of substitution and can provide misleading policy insights.

This paper examines the question to what extent premia for macroeconomic risks in banking are sufficient to avoid banking crises. We investigate a competitive banking system embedded in an overlapping-generations model subject to repeated macroeconomic shocks. We show that even if banks fully incorporate macroeconomic risks into their pricing of loans, a banking system may enter bankruptcy with probability one. A major cause for this default is that risk premia of a competitive banking system may become too small if the capital base is low.

This paper computes welfare-maximizing monetary and tax policy feedback rules in a calibrated dynamic general equilibrium model with sticky prices. The government makes exogenous final good purchases, levies a proportional income tax, and issues nominal one-period bonds. A quadratic approximation method is used to solve the model and to compute household welfare. Optimized policy has a strong anti-inflation stance and implies persistent fluctuations of the tax rate and of public debt. Very simple optimized policy rules, under which the interest rate just responds to inflation and the tax rate just responds to public debt, yield a welfare level very close to that generated by richer rules.

We study the effects of model uncertainty in a simple New Keynesian model using robust control techniques. Due to the simple model structure, we are able to find closed-form solutions for the robust control problem, analyzing both instrument rules and targeting rules under different timing assumptions. In all cases but one, an increased preference for robustness makes monetary policy respond more aggressively to cost shocks but leaves the response to demand shocks unchanged. As a consequence, inflation is less volatile and output is more volatile than under the nonrobust policy. Under one particular timing assumption, however, increasing the preference for robustness has no effect on the optimal targeting rule (nor on the economy).

This paper explores the macroeconomic consequences of preferences displaying a subsistence point. It departs from the existing related literature by assuming that subsistence points are specific to each variety of goods rather than to the composite consumption good. We show that this simple feature makes the price elasticity of demand for individual goods procyclical. As a result, markups behave countercyclically in equilibrium. This implication is in line with the available empirical evidence.