Modelling nominal debt contracts and fixed rate debt

We provide a simple model of sticky nominal debt contracts and fixed rate debt that can easily be embedded in a dynamic general equilibrium framework. Once linearized, the debt process increases the order of autoregressive dynamics in the system by one; thus potentially introducing more complex adjustment processes

Information, heterogeneity and market incompleteness in the stochastic growth model

We provide a microfounded account of imperfect information in the stochastic growth model which dramatically changes the properties of the model. We describe heterogenous households that acquire information about aggregates through their participation in markets. If markets are incomplete, household information will be imperfect. We solve the model taking account of the infinite regress of expectations that this lack of information implies. We derive analytical and numerical results to show that imperfect information can significantly change the properties of the model: under virtually all calibrations the impact response of consumption to a positive aggregate technology shock is negative.imperfect information; higher order expectations; Kalman filter; dynamic general equilibrium

Inspecting the noisy mechanism: the stochastic growth model with partial information

We derive a framework (and provide a software toolkit) which allows the dynamic general equilibrium modeller to specify what variables are in households' information sets, and the degree to which these variables are measured with error. We apply this framework to a canonical real business cycle model and show that which variables are observable has a significant effect, both qualitatively and quantitatively, on the dynamics of the model. Specifically, we find (i) The standard decentralised equilibrium, with households only observing returns and not aggregate quantities, is not stable to arbitrarily small measurement error (ii) A stable solution does exist, but it is dramatically different from the full-information case (iii) Having aggregate output data, even if relatively noisy, brings the economy much closer to the full-information solutionDGE, Partial information, Measurement error

Property A and exactness of the uniform Roe algebra

In this short note, prepared for the volume of conjectures to celebrate Guido Mislin's retirement, we outline the conjecture that a uniformly discrete bounded geometry metric space X has property A if and only if the uniform Roe algebra C^?(X ) is exact

A homological characterization of topological amenability

Generalizing Block and Weinberger’s characterization of amenability we introduce the notion of uniformly finite homology for a group action on a compact space and use it to give a homological characterization of topological amenability for actions. By considering the case of the natural action of G on its Stone-Cech compactification we obtain a homological characterisation of exactness of the group