Search Results
Working Paper
Inattentive Price Setting and Inflation Under Fiscal Policy Uncertainty
How do high public debt and fiscal uncertainty interact to shape inflation? We develop a model in which firms face uncertainty about both marginal costs and fiscal policy and choose how much information to acquire before setting prices. Higher debt raises steady-state taxes, affecting attention through two opposing forces. While these taxes reduce the profit stakes of mispricing, they make desired prices more sensitive to tax fluctuations, increasing the value of information. The interaction generates a U-shaped relationship between public debt and attention, and therefore between debt and ...