Inflation Dynamics: The Role of Expectations

This paper estimates the Phillips curve allowing for a simultaneous role of rational and survey expectations. We consider both a reduced form and a structural specification of the Phillips curve. The results suggest that survey expectations can be a statistically significant component of firms' expectations and inflation dynamics. However, rational expectations continue to play a dominant role

On the Epidemiological Microfoundations of Sticky Information

We estimate and compare two models in which households periodically update their expectations. The first model assumes that households update their expectations towards survey measures. In the second model, households update their expectations towards rational expectations (RE). While the literature has used these specifications indistinguishably, we argue that there are important differences. The two models imply different updating probabilities, and the data seem to prefer the second one. We then analyse the properties of both models in terms of mean expectations, median expectations, and a measure of disagreement among households. The model with periodical updates towards RE also seems to fit the data better along these dimensions

Learning The Inflation Target

We propose a framework in which expectations have a rational and a learning component. We describe a solution method for these frameworks and provide an application to the Volcker disinflation with the New Keynesian model. Although the model with rational expectations does not seem to account for this episode, results improve when a small and empirically plausible proportion of private agents are learning. The learning component is argued to be more robust and plausible than the rule-of-thumb expectations present in the hybrid Phillips curve

Fiscal policy under loose commitment

Due to time-inconsistency or political turnover, policymakers' promises are not always fulfilled. We analyze an optimal fiscal policy problem where the plans made by the benevolent government are periodically revised. In this loose commitment setting, the properties of labor and capital income taxes are significantly different than under the full-commitment and no-commitment assumptions. Because of the occasional reoptimizations, the average capital income tax is positive even in the long-run. Also, the autocorrelation of taxes is lower, their volatility with respect to output increases and the correlation between capital income taxes and output changes sign. Our method can be used to analyze the plausibility and the importance of commitment in a wide-class of dynamic problems

Fiscal policy under loose commitment

Due to time-inconsistency or political turnover, policymakers' promises are not always fulfilled. We analyze an optimal fiscal policy problem where the plans made by the benevolent government are periodically revised. In this loose commitment setting, the properties of labor and capital income taxes are significantly different than under the full-commitment and no-commitment assumptions. Because of the occasional reoptimizations, the average capital income tax is positive even in the long-run. Also, the autocorrelation of taxes is lower, their volatility with respect to output increases and the correlation between capital income taxes and output changes sign. Our method can be used to analyze the plausibility and the importance of commitment in a wide-class of dynamic problems

Monetary Regime Switches and Central Bank Preferences

Monetary policy objectives and targets are not necessarily constant over time. The regime-switching literature has typically analyzed and interpreted changes in policymakers' behavior through simple interest rate rules. This paper analyzes policy regime switches by explicitly modeling policymakers' behavior and objectives. We show that changes in the parameters of simple rules do not necessarily correspond to changes in policymakers' preferences. In fact, capturing and interpreting regime changes in preferences through interest rate rules can lead to misleading results

Lack Of Commitment And The Level Of Debt

The tendency of countries to accumulate public debt has been rationalized in models of political disagreement and lack of commitment. We analyze in a benchmark model how the evolution of public debt is affected by lack of commitment per se. While commitment introduces indeterminacy in the level of debt, lack of commitment creates incentives for debt to converge to specific levels. One of the levels that debt often converges to implies no debt accumulation at all. In a simple example we prove analytically that debt converges to zero, and we analyze numerically more complex models. We also show in an imperfect credibility setting that a small deviation from full-commitment is enough to obtain these results

Monetary Regime Switches and Central Bank Preferences

Monetary policy objectives and targets are not necessarily constant over time. The regime-switching literature has typically analyzed and interpreted changes in policymakers' behavior through simple interest rate rules. This paper analyzes policy regime switches by explicitly modeling policymakers' behavior and objectives. We show that changes in the parameters of simple rules do not necessarily correspond to changes in policymakers' preferences. In fact, capturing and interpreting regime changes in preferences through interest rate rules can lead to misleading results

Simple Monetary Rules under Fiscal Dominance

This paper asks whether interest rate rules that respond aggressively to inflation, following the Taylor principle, are feasible in countries that suffer from fiscal dominance. We find that if interest rates are allowed to also respond to government debt, they can produce unique equilibria. But such equilibria are associated with extremely volatile inflation. The resulting frequent violations of the zero lower bound make such rules infeasible. Even within the set of feasible rules the welfare optimizing response to inflation is highly negative. The welfare gain from responding to government debt is minimal compared to the gain from eliminating fiscal dominance

Imperfect credibility and the zero lower bound

As the nominal interest rate cannot fall below zero, a central bank with imperfect credibility faces a significant challenge to stabilize the economy in a New Keynesian model during a large recession. We characterize the optimal monetary policy at the zero lower bound for the nominal interest rate if credibility is imperfect. Confronting monetary policy communication of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Swedish Riksbank with such a framework, the credibility of both institutions is shown to have been low in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis