Ramsey,Pigou, Heterogeneous Agents,and Nonatmospheric Consumption Externalities

This paper analyzes the effects of nonatmospheric consumption externalities on optimal commodity taxation and on the social cost and optimal levels of public good provision. A negative consumption externality, by lowering the social cost of public good provision, may require the second‐best level of public good provision to exceed the first‐best level. If those households who are most important for building up the consumption reference level respond the least to commodity taxation, the second‐best commodity tax rate may fall short of the first‐best rate. Moreover, in this case, heterogeneity may imply an equity‐efficiency tradeoff. This tradeoff is present only if the consumption externality is of the nonatmospheric type.     

Predicting Stock Returns in an Efficient Market

An intertemporal general equilibrium model relates financial asset returns to movements in aggregate output. The model is a standard neoclassical growth model with serial correlation in aggregate output. Changes in aggregate output lead to attempts by agents to smooth consumption, which affects the required rate of return on financial assets. Since aggregate output is serially correlated and hence predictable, the theory suggests that stock returns can be predicted based on rational forecasts of output. The empirical results confirm that stock returns are a predictable function of aggregate output and also support the accompanying implications of the model.     

What Is in a Name? Purchases and Sales of Financial Assets as a Monetary Policy Instrument

This paper studies optimal interest rate and balance sheet policy in a quantitative New Keynesian model with a constrained financial sector, considering commitment versus discretion in monetary policy design and fixing either instrument. Optimal interest rate policy under commitment (discretion) achieves 93.0% (82.6%) of the potential gains to dual instrument monetary policy under commitment. Optimal discretionary dual instrument policy eliminates the cost of commitment limitations and exhibits no inflationary bias. Under commitment, the optimal balance sheet policy eliminates the cost of suboptimal interest rate policy, for example, an interest rate peg. Finally, I compare optimal policies to implementable rules-based policies.