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Showing results 1 to 9 of approximately 9.
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Working Paper
Policy interaction, expectations, and the liquidity trap
The authors consider inflation and government debt dynamics when monetary policy employs a global interest rate rule and private agents forecast using adaptive learning. Because of the zero lower bound on interest rates, active interest rate rules are known to imply the existence of a second, low inflation steady state, below the target inflation rate. Under adaptive learning dynamics the authors find the additional possibility of a liquidity trap, in which the economy slips below this low inflation steady state and is driven to an even lower inflation floor that is supported by a switch to ...
Journal Article
Adaptive forecasts, hysteresis, and endogenous fluctuations
This paper considers fluctuations and policy in an economic model with multiple steady states due to a production externality. In the absence of policy changes, the driving forces generating fluctuations are exogenous random productivity shocks. However, because there are multiple steady states, large productivity shocks can shift the economy between high-and low- level equilibria, providing an additional endogenous source of fluctuations. The scope for macroeconomic policy is large since changes in policy can also shift the economy between equilibria. In this setting macroeconomic policy ...
Working Paper
Adaptive learning, endogenous inattention, and changes in monetary policy
This paper develops an adaptive learning formulation of an extension to the Ball, Mankiw, and Reis (2005) sticky information model that incorporates endogenous inattention. We show that, following an exogenous increase in the policymaker?s preferences for price vs. output stability, the learning process can converge to a new equilibrium in which both output and price volatility are lower.
Working Paper
Monetary policy, endogenous inattention, and the volatility trade-off
This paper addresses the output-price volatility puzzle by studying the interaction of optimal monetary policy and agents' beliefs. We assume that agents choose their information acquisition rate by minimizing a loss function that depends on expected forecast errors and information costs. Endogenous inattention is a Nash equilibrium in the information processing rate. Although a decline of policy activism directly increases output volatility, it indirectly anchors expectations, which decreases output volatility. If the indirect effect dominates then the usual trade-off between output and ...
Working Paper
Near-rational exuberance
We study how the use of judgement or "add-factors" in macroeconomic forecasting may disturb the set of equilibrium outcomes when agents learn using recursive methods. We isolate conditions under which new phenomena, which we call exuberance equilibria, can exist in standard macroeconomic environments. Examples include a simple asset pricing model and the New Keynesian monetary policy framework. Inclusion of judgement in forecasts can lead to self-fulfilling fluctuations, but without the requirement that the underlying rational expectations equilibrium is locally indeterminate. We suggest ...
Conference Paper
Adaptive learning and monetary policy design
We review the recent work on interest rate setting, which emphasizes the desirability of designing policy to ensure stability under learning. Appropriately designed expectations-based rules can yield optimal rational expectations (REs) equilibria that are both determinate and stable under learning. Some simple instrument rules and approximate targeting rules also have these desirable properties. We discuss various complications in implementing optimal policy, including the observability of key variables and the required knowledge of structural parameters. An additional issue that we take up ...
Working Paper
A model of near-rational exuberance
We study how the use of judgment or "add-factors" in forecasting may disturb the set of equilibrium outcomes when agents learn using recursive methods. We isolate conditions under which new phenomena, which we call exuberance equilibria, can exist in a standard self-referential environment. Local indeterminacy is not a requirement for existence. We construct a simple asset pricing example and find that exuberance equilibria, when they exist, can be extremely volatile relative to fundamental equilibria.
Working Paper
Monetary policy, judgment and near-rational exuberance
We study how the use of judgment or "add-factors" in macroeconomic forecasting may disturb the set of equilibrium outcomes when agents learn using recursive methods. We examine the possibility of a new phenomenon, which we call exuberance equilibria, in the New Keynesian monetary policy framework. Inclusion of judgment in forecasts can lead to self-fulfilling fluctuations in a subset of the determinacy region. We study how policymakers can minimize the risk of exuberance equilibria.