Can monetary policy stimulate consumption through inflation expectations? We study how US consumers revise inflation expectations and readiness to spend in response to monetary policy shocks using a structural vector-autoregressive model, where we identify exogenous policy shocks with interest rate surprises around FOMC announcements. Based on survey data, we construct measures of changes in consumers’ readiness to spend conditional on how consumers update their inflation expectations. Expansionary policy shocks tend to increase readiness to spend conditional on higher expected inflation outside the zero lower bound (ZLB), but the effect is small. At the ZLB, consumers increasingly reduce their readiness to spend if they expect higher inflation. Overall, we find only limited evidence suggesting that policy-induced variations in inflation expectations are associated with adjustments that are in line with the predictions of standard macroeconomic models.

We study the transmission mechanism of a Green QE, defined as a policy that tilts the central bank’s balance sheet toward green bonds, that is bonds issued by non-polluting firms. We merge a DSGE framework with an environmental model, in which CO2 emissions increase the stock of atmospheric carbon, which in turn decreases total factor productivity. Imperfect substitutability between green and brown bonds is a necessary condition for the effectiveness of Green QE. However, even under this assumption, the effect of Green QE in reducing emissions is negligible and in some cases close to nil.

US output is more strongly correlated with the output of energy-exporting countries than with that of energy-importing countries. I first document this empirical finding, then construct a three-country model in which countries’ different energy production and trade structures are considered. The three countries are the USA (an energy importer), a non-US energy importer, and an energy exporter. Consistent with the empirical findings, the model produces a higher output correlation between the USA and the energy exporter than between the USA and the energy importer. A positive productivity shock in the USA, raising its output, leads to increases in energy prices and its import demand for energy. The increased energy prices adversely influence output in the energy importer, whereas the rise in US energy imports has positive effects on output in the energy exporter, enabling the correlation of US output with the exporter’s output to be higher.

We endogenize the R&D financial structure and investigate the effects of tax policy (dividend, corporate, and bond income taxes). Agency costs exist between the supply of and demand for funding, which enable the financial market to reshuffle loanable funds out of less productive firms toward others with greater productivity. We show that the financial structure-growth relationship is not monotonic, depending on the relative productivity between the existing and new firms and the allocation of loanable funds between them. The allocation of loanable funds, rather than their market amount, plays a key role in determining the effects of policy.

This paper investigates how responses of US macroeconomic activities to monetary policy shocks depend on the state of broker–dealer leverage. The analysis makes use of leverage data to create an indicator series that distinguishes above and below-trend leverage states for the economy which is then integrated into switching econometric models. Using state-dependent local projection methods, we find that during the below-trend leverage state, monetary policy affects the economy in a traditional fashion. However, during the above-trend leverage state, expansionary monetary policy is problematic for stimulating the economy. Additionally, during the above-trend leverage state, we find that a policy rate cut raises counterparty risks in financial markets, which in part accounts for the weaker effectiveness of the monetary policy. These findings are robust to several alternative modeling specifications and suggest that monetary policy authorities should monitor the leverage cycle when determining their policy stance on macroeconomic stability.

Many economies have recently adopted the defined-contribution retirement financing system, but one disadvantage of this system is that retirees have to bear longevity risk. As a result, several economies have also introduced the public annuity plans. We analyze the similarities and differences between voluntary public annuity with ceiling (VPAc) plan and mandatory public annuity with flexibility (MPAf) plan that are empirically observed. Introducing either plan reduces the severity of adverse selection in public annuities, but further distorts the private annuity market. These two plans have systematically different effects on retirees’ utility levels: the good health group is adversely affected and the average health group benefits. On the other hand, the poor health group benefits from the VPAc plan but may be adversely affected under the MPAf plan.

This paper studies the role of stochastic volatility in a setting where housing serves as an important propagation mechanism. After showing time-varying volatility in US house prices, we estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with housing, financial frictions, and stochastic volatility using a nonlinear approximation and Bayesian econometric techniques. Incorporating stochastic volatility into the model greatly improves model fit and accounts for approximately half of the increased volatility in house prices observed during the Great Recession. Increased stochastic volatility escalates uncertainty which has significant effects on macroeconomic variables. While uncertainty in most sectors has negative effects on the economy, uncertainty on collateral constraints has the largest role. Unlike other uncertainty shocks, the housing demand uncertainty creates positive spillovers in the economy. Credit conditions, adjustment costs of capital and housing, and monetary policy are important transmission mechanisms for the stochastic volatility shocks.

In this paper, we empirically explore the endogeneity of uncertainty and the interaction between different types of uncertainty and monetary policy using a shock-restricted vector-autoregression model. We find that a contractionary monetary policy shock reduces financial uncertainty, opposite to the findings in the previous literature, while at the same time it also heightens real uncertainty. This discrepancy arises because the model allows endogenous shifts in uncertainty. We also show that endogenous responses of uncertainty amplify the effects of monetary policy on real activity.

We study an OLG model with child policies and a PAYG pension with endogenous retirement and fertility. The result of the planned economy is compared to the decentralized competitive equilibrium deriving optimal policies. We show that in the presence of a PAYG pension system, the optimal policy mix includes an education subsidy and a subsidy for the supply of labor in old age. Fertility should be taxed or incentivized depending on whether there is full or partial retirement, and on the parameters. We focus on the parameter reflecting the deterioration of human capital and show that a child tax may be required.

The US Social Security program was created in part as an explicit response to the Great Depression. We evaluate the performance of Social Security as a protective safety net against a rare episode of sudden and significant loss of private wealth such as the Great Depression. We construct a model in which a rare event causes a shock to wealth at an unknown time. How well does Social Security function as a safety net against such risk? The answer depends critically on whether households optimize in the face of this risk. If the household has full information on the distribution of rare event risk and solves a dynamic stochastic problem to hedge this risk, then Social Security is unnecessary along this dimension. Alternatively, if the household does not account for rare event risk in its financial planning, then Social Security can provide very large welfare gains as a safety net.