Moen Meets Rotemberg: An Earthly Model of the Divine Coincidence

This paper develops a simple business-cycle model with divine coincidence: inflation is on target when unemployment is efficient. The divine coincidence arises from directed search under a quadratic price-adjustment cost.

January 2024 · Pascal Michaillat, Emmanuel Saez

An Economical Business-Cycle Model

This paper develops a policy-oriented business-cycle model with fluctuating unemployment and long zero-lower-bound episodes. The innovations are that producers and consumers meet through a matching function, and wealth enters the utility function.

April 2022 · Pascal Michaillat, Emmanuel Saez

Pricing under Fairness Concerns

This paper develops a model of pricing in which buyers care about the fairness of markups but misinfer them from prices. The model yields price rigidity, generates realistic Phillips curves, and explains why people dislike inflation so much.

June 2021 · Erik Eyster, Kristof Madarasz, Pascal Michaillat

Resolving New Keynesian Anomalies with Wealth in the Utility Function

This paper resolves the anomalies of the New Keynesian model at the zero lower bound—explosive recession, forward guidance puzzle, multiplier puzzle—by introducing wealth into the utility function.

May 2021 · Pascal Michaillat, Emmanuel Saez

Persistence of False Paradigms in Low-Power Sciences

This paper develops a model of science. It shows that due to homophily in tenure decisions, false paradigms may persist when a science has low power. Low power may come from a lack of evidence, or from a reluctance to base tenure decisions on available evidence.

December 2018 · George Akerlof, Pascal Michaillat