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Are periods of low interest rates advantageous times for governments to increase expenditure by issuing debt? Because borrowing costs are lower, some economists have argued that the answer is yes. We argue that the logic used in reaching this conclusion may in fact be too simplistic. Whether or not it is a good time to issue debt depends not on whether interest rates are low, but rather on why interest rates are low. We show that if interest rates are low because of an increased preference for saving, then fiscal sustainability allows increasing debt in a period of low interest rates. In contrast, if interest rates are low because of a decline in trend output growth, then it is not sustainable to increase deficit financed spending.

The basic New Keynesian model predicts that positive supply shocks are less expansionary at the zero lower bound (ZLB) compared to periods of active monetary policy. We test this prediction empirically using Fernald's (2014) utilization-adjusted total factor productivity series, which we take as a measure of exogenous productivity. In contrast to the predictions of the model, positive productivity shocks are estimated to be more expansionary at the ZLB compared to normal times. We find that there is no significant difference in the response of expected inflation to a productivity shock at the ZLB compared to normal times.

This paper is one of the first to quantify the welfare effects of proposed cash suppression policies. We work within the context of a general equilibrium framework in which households face an endogenous cash-in-advance constraint and firms use cash transactions to evade taxes. Eliminating currency increases transactions costs and raises effective tax rates by curbing tax evasion. Our quantitative experiments imply that a total cash ban improves steady-state welfare, but only if paired with a revenue-neutral decrease in the tax rate on capital. We show in an extension with heterogeneous agents that curtailing cash harms frequent-cash users more than others. Such distributional effects of cash suppression may be a concern for policymakers.

Increasing the inflation target in a textbook New Keynesian (NK) model may require increasing, rather than decreasing, the nominal interest rate in the short run. We refer to this positive short run co-movement between the nominal interest rate and inflation conditional on a nominal shock as Neo-Fisherianism. We show that the NK model is more likely to be Neo-Fisherian the more persistent is the change in the inflation target and the more flexible are prices. Neo-Fisherianism is driven by the forward-looking nature of the model. Modifications which make the framework less forward-looking make it less likely for the model to exhibit Neo-Fisherianism. As an example, we show that a modest and empirically realistic fraction of "rule of thumb" price-setters may altogether eliminate Neo-Fisherianism in the textbook model.

A principal components decomposition of sectoral IP data reveals that the contribution of aggregate shocks to the variance of aggregate output declined from about 70 percent in the period 1967–1983 to about 30 percent after 1983. We develop an “islands” model with two sectors and costly labor reallocation to investigate how this change in the relative importance of shocks alters business cycle moments. A version of the model with relatively more important sectoral shocks results in a sizeable decline in the cyclicality of labor productivity and is consistent with changes in several other business cycle moments observed in the data. (JEL E13, E23, E24, E32, J21, J24)

This paper shows that inflation has been an important determinant of firm-level liquid asset holdings. Liquid assets as a share of total assets – the cash ratio – for U.S. corporations steadily declined from the 1960s to the early 1980s, and has since steadily increased. Our empirical analysis finds that inflation is a key factor accounting for these changes. We show that these liquid asset holdings are imperfectly hedged against inflation. Hence, changes in inflation alter the real value of a firm’s liquid asset portfolio causing them to readjust these balances.

The flow utility of unemployment plays a crucial role in labor search and matching models. Recent evidence by Chodorow-Reich and Karabarbounis suggests that the flow utility is high on average, volatile, and strongly procyclical. Taken together, these facts imply that labor search and matching models perform worse than prevailing conventional wisdom. In contrast, we build a model where unemployed workers choose between home production and job search. Procyclical job search implies that the effective unemployment benefit is countercyclical. Our results suggest that omitting endogenous search will upwardly bias the measured correlation between effective unemployment benefits and productivity.

This paper evaluates the welfare properties of nominal GDP targeting in the context of a New Keynesian model with both price and wage rigidity. In particular, we compare nominal GDP targeting to inflation and output gap targeting as well as to a conventional Taylor rule. These comparisons are made on the basis of welfare losses relative to a hypothetical equilibrium with flexible prices and wages. Output gap targeting is the most desirable of the rules under consideration, but nominal GDP targeting performs almost as well. Nominal GDP targeting is associated with smaller welfare losses than a Taylor rule and significantly outperforms inflation targeting. Relative to inflation targeting and a Taylor rule, nominal GDP targeting performs best conditional on supply shocks and when wages are sticky relative to prices. Nominal GDP targeting may outperform output gap targeting if the gap is observed with noise, and has more desirable properties related to equilibrium determinacy than does gap targeting.

Opioid overdose is the most common cause of accidental death in the United States and no policy response has been able to contain this epidemic to date. We examine whether local access to medical cannabis can reduce opioid-related mortality. Using a unique data set of medical cannabis dispensaries combined with county-level mortality data, we estimate the effect of dispensaries operating in a county on the number of overdose deaths. We find that counties with dispensaries experience 6% to 8% fewer opioid-related deaths among non-Hispanic white men. Mortality involving heroin declines by approximately 10% following the opening of a dispensary.

This paper studies the effects of changes in collateral requirements on the cyclical properties of unemployment and job creation. I develop a general equilibrium model in which labor market frictions prevent the costless adjustment of employment. Financial frictions arise from an imperfect enforcement contract. An environment in which borrowing limits are linked to the firm׳s physical capital stock can quantitatively account for the sluggish response of labor market variables to productivity shocks. I find that fluctuations in those variables are mainly driven by changes in financial conditions. The model can explain 75% of the variation in job creation observed in the data, and it can also account for the persistent reduction in both output and leverage that follows a contraction in credit availability.

This article studies optimal monetary policy in a model with credit frictions and money demand. We show that augmenting a standard New Keynesian model with money demand and financial frictions generates a mechanism that, in equilibrium, gives rise to optimal negative nominal interest rates. In addition, we find that the tighter credit markets are, the lower the optimal nominal policy interest rate and the more likely it is to be negative. Quantitatively, when credit constraints are binding, a standard calibration of the model generates an optimal nominal policy interest rate that is roughly −4% annually. (JEL E31, E41, E43, E44, E52, E58)

This article studies optimal monetary policy in a model with credit frictions and money demand. We show that augmenting a standard New Keynesian model with money demand and financial frictions generates a mechanism that, in equilibrium, gives rise to optimal negative nominal interest rates. In addition, we find that the tighter credit markets are, the lower the optimal nominal policy interest rate and the more likely it is to be negative. Quantitatively, when credit constraints are binding, a standard calibration of the model generates an optimal nominal policy interest rate that is roughly −4% annually.