Felipe Schwartzman

Heterogeneous Price-Setting Behavior and Aggregate Dynamics: Some General Results

We analyze the effects of heterogeneity in price setting behavior in time-dependent sticky price and sticky information models characterized by quite general adjustment hazard functions. In a large class of models that includes the most commonly used price setting specifications, heterogeneity leads monetary shocks to have larger real effects than in one-sector economies with the same frequency of adjustments. Quantitatively, the effects of heterogeneity in models calibrated to match the recent empirical evidence on pricing behavior are large, even in the absence of strategic complementarity in price setting. We find that the degree of monetary non-neutrality in the calibrated heterogeneous economies can be as large as in an otherwise identical one-sector economy with roughly three times more nominal rigidity.

Does Redistribution Increase Output? The Centrality of Labor Supply

The aftermath of the recent recession has seen numerous calls to use transfers to poorer households as a means to enhance aggregate activity. We show that the key to understanding the direction and size of such interventions lies in labor supply decisions. We study the aggregate impact of short-term redistributive economic policy in a standard incomplete-markets model. We characterize analytically conditions under which redistribution leads to an increase or decrease in effective hours worked, and hence, output. We then show that under the parameterization that matches the wealth distribution in the U.S. economy (Castaneda et al., 2003), wealth redistribution leads to a boom in consumption, but not in output.

The Credibility of Exchange Rate Pegs and Bank Distress in Historical Perspective: Lessons from the National Banking Era

We examine a period during the prevalence of the gold standard in the United States to provide evidence that speculation about a currency peg can have damaging effects on bank balance sheets. In particular, the defeat of the pro-silver candidate in the 1896 presidential election was associated with a large and permanent increase in bank leverage, with the initial impact most pronounced among states where banks held more specie in proportion to their assets and were, therefore, also more committed to paying out deposits in specie. Based on the cross-sectional pattern of changes in leverage observed in 1896, we construct a measure of the credibility of the gold standard spanning the entire sample period. Changes in this measure correlate with changes in aggregate bank leverage, suggesting that uncertainty about the monetary standard played an important role in the 1893 banking panic and its aftermath.