EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA21069
Tom D. Holden
{"title":"Robust Real Rate Rules","authors":"Tom D. Holden","doi":"10.3982/ECTA21069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA21069","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>Central banks wish to avoid self-fulfilling fluctuations. Interest rate rules with a unit response to real rates achieve this under the weakest possible assumptions about the behavior of households and firms. They are robust to household heterogeneity, hand-to-mouth consumers, non-rational household or firm expectations, active fiscal policy, and to any form of intertemporal or nominal-real links. They are easy to employ in practice, using inflation-protected bonds to infer real rates. With a time-varying short-term inflation target, they can implement an arbitrary inflation path, including optimal policy. This provides a way to translate policy makers' desired path for inflation into one for nominal rates. U.S. Federal Reserve behavior is remarkably close to that predicted by a real rate rule, given the desired inflation path of U.S. monetary policy makers. Real rate rules work thanks to the key role played by the Fisher equation in monetary transmission.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1521-1551"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.3982/ECTA21069","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA20240
Benjamin Brooks, Songzi Du
{"title":"On the Structure of Informationally Robust Optimal Mechanisms","authors":"Benjamin Brooks, Songzi Du","doi":"10.3982/ECTA20240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA20240","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>We study the design of optimal mechanisms when the designer is uncertain both about the form of information held by the agents and also about which equilibrium will be played. The <i>guarantee</i> of a mechanism is its worst performance across all information structures and equilibria. The <i>potential</i> of an information structure is its best performance across all mechanisms and equilibria. We formulate a pair of linear programs, one of which is a lower bound on the maximum guarantee across all mechanisms, and the other of which is an upper bound on the minimum potential across all information structures. In applications to public expenditure, bilateral trade, and optimal auctions, we use the bounding programs to characterize guarantee-maximizing mechanisms and potential-minimizing information structures and show that the max guarantee is equal to the min potential.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1391-1438"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.3982/ECTA20240","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA20942
Matteo Cervellati, Giorgio Gulino, Paolo Roberti
{"title":"Random Votes to Parties and Policies in Coalition Governments","authors":"Matteo Cervellati, Giorgio Gulino, Paolo Roberti","doi":"10.3982/ECTA20942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA20942","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>We exploit a natural experiment involving a randomization of votes across parties within coalitions in all local elections in Italy for over a decade. A lottery on the position of party symbols in the ballot papers allows estimating the causal effect of increasing votes to parties for coalition policies. A non-marginal random boost of votes shifts budgetary spending towards the treated party's platform, but only for issues that are salient in that party's political manifesto. We study the chains of mechanisms mapping votes into policies and link it to an increase in bargaining power within legislative majorities. Parties leverage their higher electoral support to gain the appointment of politically affiliated cabinet members. Empowering different parties also leads to the selection of cabinets with different socio-demographic characteristics. The unintentional experiment helps shed new light on mechanisms mapping votes to parties into coalition policies.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1553-1588"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.3982/ECTA20942","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA20612
Davide Cantoni, Cathrin Mohr, Matthias Weigand
{"title":"The Rise of Fiscal Capacity: Administration and State Consolidation in the Holy Roman Empire","authors":"Davide Cantoni, Cathrin Mohr, Matthias Weigand","doi":"10.3982/ECTA20612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA20612","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>This paper studies the role of fiscal capacity in European state consolidation. Our analysis is organized around novel data on the territories and cities of the Holy Roman Empire in the early modern period. Territories implementing an early fiscal reform were more likely to survive, increased in size, and achieved a more compact extent. We provide evidence for the causal interpretation of these results and show key mechanisms: revenues, military investments, and marriage success. The imposition of Imperial taxes, quasi-random in timing and size, increased the benefits of an efficient tax administration on the side of rulers, driving the implementation of fiscal centralization. Within territories, Chambers became the dominant administrative institution, tilting the consolidating states toward absolutism.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1439-1472"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.3982/ECTA20612","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA22442
Marina Agranov, Benjamin Gillen, Dotan Persitz
{"title":"A Comment on “Testing Models of Social Learning on Networks: Evidence From Two Experiments”","authors":"Marina Agranov, Benjamin Gillen, Dotan Persitz","doi":"10.3982/ECTA22442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA22442","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1-6"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA925SUM
{"title":"Submission of Manuscripts to the Econometric Society Monograph Series","authors":"","doi":"10.3982/ECTA925SUM","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA925SUM","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1775"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA21791
George-Marios Angeletos, Chen Lian, Christian K. Wolf
{"title":"Can Deficits Finance Themselves?","authors":"George-Marios Angeletos, Chen Lian, Christian K. Wolf","doi":"10.3982/ECTA21791","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA21791","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 <p>We ask how fiscal deficits are financed in environments with two key features: (i) nominal rigidity, and (ii) a violation of Ricardian equivalence due to finite lives or liquidity constraints. In such environments, deficits can contribute to their own financing through two channels: a boom in real economic activity, which expands the tax base; and a surge in inflation, which erodes the real value of nominal government debt. Our main theoretical result establishes that this mechanism becomes more potent as fiscal adjustment is delayed, leading to full self-financing in the limit: if the monetary authority does not lean too heavily against the fiscal stimulus, then the government can run a deficit today, refrain from tax hikes or spending cuts in the future, and still see its debt converge back to its initial level. We further demonstrate that a significant degree of self-financing is achievable when the theory is disciplined by empirical evidence on marginal propensities to consume, nominal rigidities, the monetary policy reaction, and the speed of fiscal adjustment.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1351-1390"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.3982/ECTA21791","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EconometricaPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.3982/ECTA20579
Devesh Rustagi
{"title":"Historical Self-Governance and Norms of Cooperation","authors":"Devesh Rustagi","doi":"10.3982/ECTA20579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA20579","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Does self-governance, a hallmark of democratic societies, foster norms of generalized cooperation? Does this effect persist, and if so, why? I investigate these questions using a natural experiment in Switzerland. In the Middle Ages, the absence of an heir resulted in the extinction of a prominent noble dynasty. As a result, some Swiss municipalities became self-governing, whereas the others remained under feudalism for another 600 years. Evidence from a behavioral experiment, the World Values Survey and the Swiss Household Panel consistently show that individuals from historically self-governing municipalities exhibit stronger norms of cooperation today. Referenda data on voter-turnout allow me to trace these effects on individually costly and socially beneficial actions for over 150 years. Furthermore, norms of cooperation map into prosocial behaviors like charitable giving and environmental protection. Uniquely, Switzerland tracks every family's place of origin in registration data, which I use to demonstrate persistence from cultural transmission in a context of historically low migration.</p>","PeriodicalId":50556,"journal":{"name":"Econometrica","volume":"92 5","pages":"1473-1502"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.3982/ECTA20579","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}