Research

A summary of this research program appeared in the NBER Reporter, 2017.

Working Papers

• It’s Baaack: The Inflation Surge of 2020s and the Return of the Non-Linear Phillips Curve PDF (with Pierpaolo Benigno), NBER WP 31197; revised October 2025.

• The Forward Guidance Puzzle is not a Puzzle PDF (with Finn D. Schüle), NBER WP 33180, November 2024.

• Revisiting the Phillips and Beveridge Curves: Insights from the 2020s Inflation Surge PDF (with Pierpaolo Benigno), prepared for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, August 2024. NBER WP 33095, October 2024.

• The Inflation Surge of the 2020s: The Role of Monetary Policy PDF (with Donald Kohn), Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Brookings Institution, August 2023.

• Mr. Keynes and the Classics; A Suggested Reinterpretation PDF (with Cosimo Petracchi), September 2021.

Published Articles

• Liquidity Traps: A Unified Theory of the Great Depression and the Great Recession PDF (with Sergey K. Egiev), Journal of Economic Literature, 63(4): 1424–1551, December 2025.

• Negative Nominal Interest Rates and the Bank Lending Channel PDF (with Ragnar Juelsrud, Lawrence H. Summers and Ella G. Wold), Review of Economic Studies, 91(4): 2201–2275, July 2024.

• The Slanted-L Phillips Curve PDF (with Pierpaolo Benigno), AEA Papers and Proceedings, 114: 84–89, May 2024.

• Time Consistency and the Duration of Government Debt: A Model of Quantitative Easing PDF (with Saroj Bhattarai and Bulat Gafarov), Review of Economic Studies, 90(4): 1759–1799, July 2023.

• Kaldor’s and Piketty’s Facts: The Rise of Monopoly Power in the United States PDF (with Jakob Robbins and Ella Getz Wold), Journal of Monetary Economics, Volume 124, November 2021. Talk

• A Toolkit for Solving Models with a Lower Bound on Interest Rates of Stochastic Duration PDF (with Sergey K. Egiev, Alessandro Lin, Josef Platzer and Luca Riva, September 2020), Review of Economic Dynamics, Volume 41, July 2021, issue in honor of the memory of Alejandro Justiniano.

  • For codes and programs click here.

• Medium-Term Money Neutrality and the Effective Lower Bound PDF (with Marc Giannoni), 50 year anniversity issue of the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Volume 52, Issue S2, February 2021.

• Dynamic Debt Deleveraging and Optimal Monetary Policy PDF (with Pierpaolo Benigno and Federica Romei), American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Vol 12, no. 2, April 2020.

• Aging, Output Per Capita and Secular Stagnation PDF (with Manuel Lancastre and Lawrence H. Summers), American Economic Review - Insights, Vol. 1, No 3, December 2019.

• Log-linear approximation versus an exact solution at the ZLB in the New Keynesian model PDF (with Sanjay Singh), Journal of Economic Dynamics and Controls, Vol. 105, August 2019.

• A Model of Secular Stagnation: Theory and Quantitative Evaluation PDF (with Neil R. Mehrotra and Jacob Robbins), American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Vol. 11 No. 1, January 2019.

• Sticky Prices Versus Sticky Information: Does it Matter for Policy Paradoxes? PDF (with Vaishali Garga), Review of Economic Dynamics, Vol 31, January 2019.

• Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing (Redux)? PDF (with Saroj Bhattarai and Raphael Schoenle), Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 100(C), December 2018.

• The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Iceland: A Postmortem Analysis of the 2008 Financial Crisis PDF, (with Sigríður Benediktsdóttir and Eggert Þórarinsson), Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2017.

• The Great Escape? A Quantitative Evaluation of the Fed’s Liquidity Facilities PDF (with Marco Del Negro, Andrea Ferrero, and Nobuhiro Kiyotaki), American Economic Review, 107, pp. 824-857, March 2017.

• A Contagious Malady? Open Economy Dimensions of Secular Stagnation PDF (with Neil Mehrotra, Sanjay Singh, and Lawrence Summers, June 2016), IMF Economic Review, Vol. 64(4), pp. 581-634. December 2016.

• Bernanke’s No-arbitrage Argument Revisited: Can Open Market Operations in Real Assets Eliminate the Liquidity Trap? PDF (with Kevin Proulx), in M. Woodford, editor, Monetary Policy through Asset Markets: Lessons from Unconventional Measures and Implications for an Integrated World , Santiago: Central Bank of Chile, 2016.

• Secular Stagnation in the Open Economy PDF (with Neil Mehrotra and Lawrence Summers), American Economic Review, P&P, 106(5): 503-507, May 2016.

• Can Structural Reforms Help Europe? PDF (with Andrea Ferrero and Andrea Raffo), Journal of Monetary Economics, 61, January 2014, pp. 2-22.

• Deficits, Public Debt Dynamics and Tax and Spending Multipliers PDF (with Matthew Denes and Sophia Gilbukh), Economic Journal, 123 (566), 133-163, 2013.

• Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap: A Fisher-Minsky-Koo approach PDF (with Paul Krugman), Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127(3): 1469-1513, August 2012.

• Was the New Deal Contractionary? PDF, American Economic Review, 102(1): 524-555, February 2012.

• Fiscal Multipliers and Policy Coordination PDF in J. Gali, editor, Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Performance, Santiago: Central Bank of Chile, October 2013.

• What Fiscal Policy is Effective at Zero Interest Rates? PDF, NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2010, Vol. 25: 59–112, May 2011.

• A Political Agency Theory of Central Bank Independence PDF (with Eric Le Borgne), Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Vol. 42, No. 4, June 2010.

• Great Expectations and the End of the Depression PDF, American Economic Review, 98(4): 1476–1516, September 2008.

• The Mistake of 1937: A General Equilibrium Analysis PDF (with Benjamin Pugsley), Monetary and Economic Studies, 24(S-1), December 2006.

• The Deflation Bias and Committing to being Irresponsible PDF, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 38(2): 283–321, March 2006.

• Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy in a Liquidity Trap PDF (with Michael Woodford), NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2004.

• Policy Options in a Liquidity trap PDF (with Michael Woodford), American Economic Review, P&P, 2004: 94(2).

• The Zero Interest-Rate Bound and Optimal Monetary Policy PDF (with Michael Woodford), Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2003:1.

Published Commentaries, Surveys

• The Liquidity Trap PDF, the New Palgrave Dictionary in Economics, 2cond edition.

• Comment on Macroeconomic Policy in the European Monetary Union PDF, NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, 2004.

• Comment on Monetary and Fiscal Policy in a Low Inflation Economy with Learning PDF, Bank of Korea Annual Conference Volume, 2006.

• A Reply to Steven Horwitz Commentary on “Great Expectations and the End of the Depression” PDF, Econ Journal Watch, 7(3): 197–204, September 2010.

• Commentary on Price-Level Targeting and Stabilization Policy by A. Berentsen and C. Waller PDF, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, October 2011, vol 43., p. 581-588.

• Commentary on Optimal Stabilization Policy by G. Mankiw and M. Winzierl PDF, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, spring 2011.

• Commentary on How Flexible Can Inflation Targeting be and Still Work? by Kenneth N. Kuttner and Adam S Posen PDF, International Journal of Central Banking, Volume 8, Supplement 1, January 2012.

• Comment on Fiscal Policy as a Stabilization Tool by Antonias Fatas and Ilian Mihov PDF, B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, Volume 12, Issue 3, October 2012.

• Fiscal Policy, Public Debt and the World Crisis PDF (prepared for Berlin symposium “Government Debt in Democracies: Causes, Effects, and Limits”), German Economic Review, Volumue 15, Issue 2, pages 225-242, May 2014.

• Comment on “Forward Guidance and Macroeconomic Outcomes Since the Financial Crisis” PDF, NBER Macroeconomic Annual 2016, Volume 31, 2016.

• Comment on Sources and Mechanism of Stagnation and Impaired Growth in Advanced Economies by Robert Hall PDF, ECB Sintra Forum on Central Banking, June 2017.

• Commentary Slowing Business Dynamics by Akcigit and Ates PDF, Jackson Hole Conference, September 2020.

Blog Commentaries

• Negative Interest Rates and the Bank Lending Channel, (with Lawrence Summers) Vox Column, January 2019.

• Monetary policy with negative nominal interest rates, (with Ragnar Juelsrud and Ella Getz Wold) VOX Column, January 2018.

• To accomodate or not: The Federal Reserve’s new normal, (with Neil Mehrotra and Jacob A. Robbins), VOX Column, April 2017.

• Secular stagnation in the open economies: How it spreads, how it can be cured, (with Lawrence Summers) VOX Column, July 2016.

• A model of secular stagnation, (with Neil Mehrotra) VOX Column, August 2014.

• Commodity Prices and the Mistake of 1937: Would Modern Economists Make the Same Mistake?, Liberty Street Economics Blog, June 2011.

  • Some old (declassified) policy work

• FOMC briefing PDF on “Federal Reserve experiences with Very Low Interest Rates,” with Mark Carlson and Elmar Mertens, December 5th, 2008.

• Inflation budgeting proposal from fall 2010 Blackbook recently declassified under the Freedom of Information Act by Bloomberg News.

Other Material, Older Unpublished Working Papers, Notes, etc

• A Model of Secular Stagnation PDF (with Neil Mehrotra, October 2014).

• A Comment on Casey Mullingan’s test of the Paradox of Toil PDF, preliminary note, May 2010.

• The Paradox of Toil PDF, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report, No. 433, February 2010.

• A Bayesian Approach to Estimating Tax and Spending Multipliers PDF, with Matthew Denes, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report, No. 403, November 2009.

• Optimal Time-Consistent Monetary Policy in the New Keynesian Model with Repeated Simultaneous Play PDF (with Eric T. Swanson), mimeo, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2008.

• Does Excess Liquidity Pose a Threat in Japan? PDF, (with Jonathan Ostry), IMF Policy Discussion Paper PDP/05/5, April 2005.

• Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy and the Liquidity Trap PDF, Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 2004.

• How to Fight Deflation at Zero Nominal Interest Rates: Committing to Being Irresponsible PDF, IMF Working Paper WP/03/64, May 2003.

• Committing to Being Irresponsible: Deficit Spending to Escape a Liquidity Trap PDF, mimeo, Princeton University, November 2001.

• Real Government Spending in a Liquidity Trap PDF, mimeo, Princeton University, November 2001.