What do New-Keynesian Phillips Curves imply for price level targeting?

This paper extends the analysis of price level targeting to a model including the New-Keynesian Phillips Curve. We examine the inflation-output variability tradeoffs implied by optimal inflation and price level rules. In previous work with the Neoclassical Phillips Curve, we found that the choice between inflation targeting and price level targeting depended on the amount of persistence in the output gap. That is, if the output gap was not too persistent, or if lagged output did not enter the aggregate supply function, then inflation targets were preferred to price level targets. When we start with a New Keynesian Phillips Curve, the amount of persistence in the output gap still affects the relative placement of the inflation-output variability tradeoff. But, contrary to the Neoclassical case, even where the persistence of the output gap in the aggregate supply function is small or nonexistent, the price level targeting regime still results in a more favorable tradeoff between output and inflation variability than does an inflation-targeting regime.Phillips curve ; Monetary policy ; Inflation (Finance)

Inflation-targeting, price-path targeting and indeterminacy

In this paper, we examine the areas of indeterminacy in a flexible price RBC model with shopping time role for money and a central bank that uses an interest rate rule to target inflation and/or the price level. We present analytical results showing that, although inflation targeting often results in real indeterminacy, a price level target generally delivers a unique equilibrium for a relevant range of policy parameters.Monetary policy ; Equilibrium (Economics)

What do New-Keynesian Phillips Curves imply for price-level targeting?

This paper extends the analysis of price-level targeting to a model including the New-Keynesian Phillips Curve. We examine the inflation-output variability tradeoffs implied by optimal inflation and price-level rules. In previous work with the Neoclassical Phillips Curve, we found that the choice between inflation targeting and price-level targeting depended on the amount of persistence in the output gap. That is, if the output gap was not too persistent, or if lagged output did not enter the aggregate supply function, then inflation targets were preferred to price-level targets. When we start with a New-Keynesian Phillips Curve, the amount of persistence in the output gap still affects the relative placement of the inflation-output variability tradeoff. But, contrary to the Neoclassical case, even where the persistence of the output gap in the aggregate supply function is small or nonexistent, the price-level- targeting regime still results in a more favorable tradeoff between output and inflation variability than does an inflation-targeting regime.Phillips curve ; Monetary policy ; Inflation (Finance)

Cointegration and Consumption Risks in Asset Returns

We argue that the cointegrating relation between dividends and consumption, a measure of long run consumption risks, is a key determinant of risk premia at all investment horizons. As the investment horizon increases, transitory risks disappear, and the asset's beta is dominated by long run consumption risks. We show that the return betas, derived from the cointegration-based VAR (EC-VAR) model, successfully account for the crosssectional variation in equity returns at both short and long horizons; this is not the case when the cointegrating restriction is ignored. Our evidence highlights the importance of cointegration-based long run consumption risks for financial markets.

Stochastic Capital Depreciation and the Comovement of Hours and Productivity

In this article, we demonstrate that a small degree of stochastic variation in the depreciation rate of capital can greatly reduce the comovement between hours worked and labor productivity in a neoclassical growth model. The depreciation rate is modeled as a Markov process to place a strict upper bound and to ensure that variation and not the level of the rate is driving the result. Markov switching implies nonlinear decision rules in the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model (DSGE). Our contribution to DSGE solution methodologies in the presence of Markov switching is to apply Judd's (1998) projection method to nonlinear decision rules. This approach allows for nonlinear decision rules in a richer set of models with many more state variables than can be solved with grid based approximations. The results presented here suggest that Markov switching parameters offer a powerfull extension to DSGE models.

Inflation persistence and flexible prices

If the central bank follows an interest rate rule, then inflation is likely to be persistence, even when prices are fully flexible. Any shock, whether persistent or not, may lead to inflation persistence. In equilibrium, the dynamics of inflation are determined by the evolution of the spread between the real interest rate and the central bank’s target. Inflation persistence in U.S. data can be characterized by a vector autocorrelation function relating inflation and deviations of output from trend. This paper shows that a flexible-price general equilibrium business cycle model with money and a central bank using an interest rate target can account for such inflation persistence.Inflation (Finance) ; Econometric models ; Taylor's rule

Is technical analysis in the foreign exchange market profitable? a genetic programming approach

Using genetic programming techniques to find technical trading rules, we find strong evidence of economically significant out-of-sample excess returns to those rules for each of six exchange rates, over the period 1981-1995. Further, when the dollar/deutschemark rules are allowed to determine trades in the other markets, there is a significant improvement in performance in all cases, except for the deutschemark/yen. Betas calculated for the returns according to various benchmark portfolios provide no evidence that the returns to these rules are compensation for bearing systematic risk. Bootstrapping results on the dollar/deutschemark indicate that the trading rules are detecting patterns in the data that are not captured by standard statistical models.Programming (Mathematics) ; Foreign exchange

Gold, fiat money and price stability

The classical gold standard has long been associated with long-run price stability. But short-run price variability led critics of the gold standard to propose reforms that look much like modern versions of price-path targeting. This paper uses a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to examine price dynamics under alternative policy regimes. In the model, an inflation target provides more short-run price stability than does the gold standard and, although it introduces a unit root into the price level, it leads to as much long-term price stability as does the gold standard for horizons shorter than 30 years. Relative to these regimes, Fisher's compensated dollar reduces price level and inflation uncertainty by an order of magnitude at all horizons.> The classical gold standard has long been associated with long-run price stability. But short-run price variability led critics of the gold standard to propose reforms that look much like modern versions of price-path targeting. This paper uses a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to examine price dynamics under alternative policy regimes. In the model, an inflation target provides more short-run price stability than does the gold standard and, although it introduces a unit root into the price level, it leads to as much long-term price stability as does the gold standard for horizons shorter than 30 years. Relative to these regimes, Fisher's compensated dollar reduces price level and inflation uncertainty by an order of magnitude at all horizons.Inflation (Finance) ; Monetary policy ; Gold standard

Gold, Fiat Money, and Price Stability

Which monetary regime is associated with the most stable price level? A commodity money regime such as the classical gold standard has long been associated with long-run price stability. But critics of the day argued that the regime was associated with too much short-run price variability and argued for reforms that look much like modern versions of price-level targeting. In this paper, we develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model that we use to examine price dynamics under four alternative regimes. They are the gold standard, Irving Fisher's compensated dollar proposal, and two regimes with paper money in which the central bank uses an interest rate rule to run monetary policy. In the first, the central bank uses an interest rate rule to target the price of gold. In the second, there is no convertibility and the central bank targets uses an interest rate rule to target an inflation rate. We find that strict inflation targeting, even though it introduces a unit root into the price level, provides more short-run stability than the gold standard and as much long-term price stability as does the gold standard for horizons shorter than 30 years. We find that Fisher's compensated dollar reduces price level and inflation uncertainty by an order of magnitude at all horizons.

Stochastic capital depreciation and the comovement of hours and productivity

An unresolved question concerning stochastic depreciation shocks is whether they have to be unrealistically large to have any useful role in a dynamic general equilibrium model economy, as Ambler and Paquet (1994) first suggested. We first consider implied depreciation rates from sectoral data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. These depreciation rates vary across time solely due to compositional changes within each sector. Hence, they tend to understate the range of fluctuation that would hold if the economic shelf life of capital varied endogenously as in Cooley, Greenwood and Yorukoglu (1997). We find, however, that if depreciation rates follow a Markov switching process, a low variance of the depreciation rate can generate the low correlation between hours worked and productivity in a simple model economy. White noise and autoregressive depreciation shocks, in contrast, require a counterfactually large variance in the depreciation rate to reduce the hours-productivity correlation. We also illustrate the level effects implied by nonlinear decision rules in simulations of dynamic general equilibrium models that include Markov switching parameters. Linear decision rules, in contrast, imply certainty equivalence and ignore the aversion that agents have to the skewed shock distributions that characterize Markov switching.Econometric models ; Productivity