scholarly journals Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 341-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Coibion ◽  
Yuriy Gorodnichenko

With positive trend inflation, the Taylor principle does not guarantee a determinate equilibrium. We provide new theoretical results on determinacy in New Keynesian models with positive trend inflation and new empirical findings on the Federal Reserve's reaction function before and after the Volcker disinflation to find that, (i) while the Fed likely satisfied the Taylor principle before Volcker, the US economy was still subject to self-fulfilling fluctuations in the 1970s, (ii) the US economy switched to determinacy during the Volcker disinflation, and (iii) the switch reflected changes in the Fed's response to macroeconomic variables and the decline in trend inflation. (JEL E12, E23, E31, E32, E52)

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
Sandeep Thakur

The main aim of this paper is to determine whether the volatility in the stocks can be created by events like the US Election and whether it leads to Fat Tail in the stocks. Fat Tail analysis is a key factor in determining volatility and has been used in the economy as well as in many other fields like climate and health. Log return has been used to determine the Fat Tail. To make the work more reliable, two Presidential election periods, that of Barack Obama and Donald Trump is selected and is compared for volatility and Fat Tail. For this study, stocks from the S&P 100 are selected and observed. The results show that the US economy is not at all driven by who comes in power and when but rather by the present economic condition. Stocks showing heavy tails during the Obama presidency are primarily because the economy was under Sub Prime Crisis too.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir N. Pokrovskii

It is shown that substitutive work, which can be defined as work of production equipment (capital stock) replacing the efforts of workers in production processes, can be considered as a measure of technical progress. The methods of estimation of substitutive work are discussed. The theoretical results are illustrated on the data for the US. economy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Alessandro Cantelmo ◽  
Giovanni Melina

How should central banks optimally aggregate sectoral inflation rates in the presence of imperfect labor mobility across sectors? We study this issue in a two-sector New-Keynesian model and show that a lower degree of sectoral labor mobility, ceteris paribus, increases the optimal weight on inflation in a sector that would otherwise receive a lower weight. We analytically and numerically find that, with limited labor mobility, adjustment to asymmetric shocks cannot fully occur through the reallocation of labor, thus putting more pressure on wages, causing inefficient movements in relative prices, and creating scope for central bank’ s intervention. These findings challenge standard central banks’ practice of computing sectoral inflation weights based solely on sector size and unveil a significant role for the degree of sectoral labor mobility to play in the optimal computation. In an extended estimated model of the US economy, featuring customary frictions and shocks, the estimated inflation weights imply a decrease in welfare up to 10% relative to the case of optimal weights.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Nicholas Bitar

Will the US sustain its economy after the tariff war with China, or will the economy regress? This paper offers a conceptual framework, based on the tenets of New-Keynesian theory, to answer this question. I anticipate that the tariff will have a positive effect on the GDP of the US economy in the short run while prices will rise. When adding the most recent reforms of interest cut by the Fed to 1.75% in September (2019) the model concludes a better outcome. Followed by an expansionary monetary policy by reducing the interest rate, the aftermath of the tariff war on China seems to have a positive impact on the US income and productivity. Obviously, some critics to the Trump Administration indeed shed light on the curtailed global and US social welfare that is caused by the inflationary effect of the tariff war, in addition to the deteriorating conditions for some trading sectors in the US which would certainly lead to unemployment. But the benefits to the US economy that are translated by the New-Keynesian theoretical framework show a positive impact on US production, employment, and GDP.


2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Barbara Annicchiarico ◽  
Alessandra Pelloni

This paper examines how innovation-led growth affects optimal monetary policy. We consider the Ramsey policy in a New Keynesian model where R&D leads to an expanding variety of intermediate goods and compare the results with those obtained when the expansion occurs exogenously. Positive trend inflation is found to be optimal under both assumptions, but much higher with profit-seeking innovation. Optimal monetary policy must be counter-cyclical in response to both technology and public spending shocks, yet the intensity of the reaction crucially depends on the presence of an R&D sector. However, the small amount of short-run deviations of prices from the non-zero trend inflation observed in response to shocks suggests inflation targeting as a robust policy recommendation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto M Billi

This paper studies the optimal long-run inflation rate (OIR) in a small New Keynesian model, where the only policy instrument is a short-term nominal interest rate that may occasionally run against a zero lower bound (ZLB). The model allows for worst-case scenarios of misspecification. The analysis shows first, if the government optimally commits, the OIR is below 1 percent annually. Second, if the government re-optimizes each period, the OIR rises markedly to 17 percent. Third, if the government commits only to an inertial Taylor rule, the inflation bias is eliminated at very low cost in terms of welfare for the representative household. (JEL E12, E31, E43, E52, E58)


2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 679-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Ascari ◽  
Argia M. Sbordone

Most macroeconomic models for monetary policy analysis are approximated around a zero inflation steady state, but most central banks target an inflation rate of about 2 percent. Many economists have recently proposed even higher inflation targets to reduce the incidence of the zero lower bound constraint on monetary policy. In this survey, we show that the conduct of monetary policy should be analyzed by appropriately accounting for the positive trend inflation targeted by policymakers. We first review empirical research on the evolution and dynamics of U.S. trend inflation and some proposed new measures to assess the volatility and persistence of trend-based inflation gaps. We then construct a Generalized New Keynesian model that accounts for a positive trend inflation. In this model, an increase in trend inflation is associated with a more volatile and unstable economy and tends to destabilize inflation expectations. This analysis offers a note of caution regarding recent proposals to address the existing zero lower bound problem by raising the long-run inflation target. (JEL E12, E31, E32, E52, E58)


Author(s):  
Peter Challenor ◽  
Doug McNeall ◽  
James Gattiker

This article examines the dynamics of the US economy over the last five decades using Bayesian analysis of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. It highlights an example application in what is commonly referred to as the new macroeconometrics, which combines macroeconomics with econometrics. The article describes a benchmark New Keynesian DSGE model that incorporates four types of agents: households that consume, save, and supply labour to a labour ‘packer’; a labour ‘packer’ that puts together the labour supplied by different households into an homogeneous labour unit; intermediate good producers, who produce goods using capital and aggregated labour; and a final good producer that mixes all the intermediate goods. It also considers the application of the model in policy analysis for public institutions such as central banks, along with private organizations and businesses. Finally, it discusses three avenues for further research in the estimation of DSGE models.


2019 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 702-737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Adam ◽  
Henning Weber

Sticky price models featuring heterogeneous firms and systematic firm-level productivity trends deliver radically different predictions for the optimal inflation rate than their popular homogenous-firm counterparts: (i) the optimal steady-state inflation rate generically differs from zero and (ii) inflation optimally responds to productivity disturbances. We show this by aggregating a heterogeneous-firm model with sticky prices in closed form. Using firm-level data from the US Census Bureau, we estimate the historically optimal inflation path for the US economy: the optimal inflation rate ranges between 1 percent and 3 percent per year and displays a downward trend over the period 1977–2015. (JEL C51, D24, D25, E31, E52)


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