Research

Working Papers

"Monetary Policy and Exchange Rate Dynamics in a Behavioral Open Economy Model" with Marcin Kolasa and Pawel Zabczyk

Abstract: We develop an extension of the open economy New Keynesian model in which agents are boundedly rational à la Gabaix (2020). Our setup nests rational expectations (RE) as a special case, and it can successfully mitigate many "puzzling" aspects of the relationship between exchange rates and interest rates. Since the model implies an uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) condition featuring behavioral expectations, our results are also consistent with empirical evidence showing that several UIP puzzles vanish when actual exchange rate expectations are used (instead of realizations implicitly coupled with the RE assumption). We find that cognitive discounting dampens the effects of current monetary shocks and lowers the efficacy of forward guidance (FG), but its relative importance in mitigating the so-called FG puzzle is decreasing in openness. We also show that accounting for agents' myopia makes positive international monetary spillovers more likely, increases the persistence of the real exchange rate and net foreign assets, and exacerbates the small open economy unit root problem. Finally, the model provides arguments against using the exchange rate as a nominal anchor.

Presented at: MMF PhD Conference, Edinburgh (April 2022); CEF, Dallas (June 2022); 4th Behavioral Macroeconomic workshop, Bamberg (June 2022); Dynare Conference, Lancaster University (June 2022); EEA Congress, Milan (Aug 2022); MMF Conference, Canterbury (Sept 2022)

Work in Progress

"New Keynesian Model of Debt and Equity without Rational Expectations" with Bruce Preston and Stefano Eusepi
"Habit, Forward Guidance, and Monetary Policy"
"Fiscal Consolidation and Bounded Rationality," with Hyungseok Joo
"Linear-Quadratic Approximation of a Small Open Economy NK Model" with Leilane Cambara and Paul Levine

Discussions

"Implications of Endogenous Cognitive Discounting" by James Moberly, at MMF PhD Conference, Edinburgh (April 2022) [Slides]
"Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy with Multiple Monetary Assets" by Van Nguyen, at DSGE Modelling for Emerging Open Economies, City University of London (April 2022) [Slides]