Search Results

This collection of essays uses the lens of rational expectations theory to examine how governments anticipate and plan for inflation, and provides insight into the pioneering research for which the author was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in economics. Rational expectations theory is based on the simple premise that people will use all the information available to them in making economic decisions, yet applying the theory to macroeconomics and econometrics is technically demanding. This book engages with practical problems in economics in a less formal, noneconometric way, demonstrating how rational expectations can satisfactorily interpret a range of historical and contemporary events. It focuses on periods of actual or threatened depreciation in the value of a nation's currency. Drawing on historical attempts to counter inflation, from the French Revolution and the aftermath of World War I to the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the book finds that there is no purely monetary cure for inflation; rather, monetary and fiscal policies must be coordinated. This fully expanded edition includes the author's 2011 Nobel lecture, “United States Then, Europe Now.” It also features new articles on the macroeconomics of the French Revolution and government budget deficits.

A common set of mathematical tools underlies dynamic optimization, dynamic estimation, and filtering. This book uses these tools to create a class of econometrically tractable models of prices and quantities. The book presents examples from microeconomics, macroeconomics, and asset pricing. The models are cast in terms of a representative consumer. While the book demonstrates the analytical benefits acquired when an analysis with a representative consumer is possible, it also characterizes the restrictiveness of assumptions under which a representative household justifies a purely aggregative analysis. The book unites economic theory with a workable econometrics while going beyond and beneath demand and supply curves for dynamic economies. It constructs and applies competitive equilibria for a class of linear-quadratic-Gaussian dynamic economies with complete markets. The book, based on the 2012 Gorman lectures, stresses heterogeneity, aggregation, and how a common structure unites what superficially appear to be diverse applications. An appendix describes MATLAB programs that apply to the book's calculations.