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Robustifying learnability

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Author Info
Tetlow, Robert J.
von zur Muehlen, Peter

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Abstract

In recent years, the learnability of rational expectations equilibria (REE) and determinacy of economic structures have rightfully joined the usual performance criteria among the sought-after goals of policy design. Some contributions to the literature, including Bullard and Mitra [2002. Learning about monetary policy rules. Journal of Monetary Economics 49 (6), 1105-1139] and Evans and Honkapohja [2006. Monetary Policy, Expectations, and Commitment, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 108, 15-38], have made significant headway in establishing certain features of monetary policy rules that facilitate learning. However a treatment of policy design for learnability in worlds where agents have potentially misspecified their learning models has yet to surface. This paper provides such a treatment. We begin with the notion that because the profession has yet to settle on a consensus model of the economy, it is unreasonable to expect private agents to have collective rational expectations. We assume that agents have only an approximate understanding of the workings of the economy and that their learning the reduced forms of the economy is subject to potentially destabilizing perturbations. The issue is then whether a central bank can design policy to account for perturbations and still assure the learnability of the model. We provide two examples one of which-the canonical New Keynesian business cycle model-serves as a test case. For different parameterizations of a given policy rule, we use structured singular value analysis (from robust control theory) to find the largest ranges of misspecifications that can be tolerated in a learning model without compromising convergence to an REE. In addition, we study the cost, in terms of performance in the steady state of a central bank that acts to robustify learnability on the transition path to REE.

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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.

Volume (Year): 33 (2009)
Issue (Month): 2 (February)
Pages: 296-316
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Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:33:y:2009:i:2:p:296-316

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Related research
Keywords: Monetary policy Learning E-stability Learnability Robust control;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Katja Funke & Christiane Nickel, 2006. "Does fiscal policy matter for the trade account? A panel cointegration study," Working Paper Series 620, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  2. George W. Evans & Bruce McGough, 2005. "Optimal Constrained Interest-rate Rules," University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers 2005-9, University of Oregon Economics Department, revised 31 May 2006. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Daniel A. Dias & Carlos Robalo Marques & João M. C. Santos Silva, 2006. "Measuring the importance of the uniform nonsynchronization hypothesis," Working Paper Series 606, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  4. Ignazio Angeloni & Luc Aucremanne & Matteo Ciccarelli, 2006. "Price setting and inflation persistence: did EMU matter?," Working Paper Series 597, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2006. "Trends and cycles in the euro area: how much heterogeneity and should we worry about it?," Working Paper Series 595, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Martin Ellison & Thomas J. Sargent, 2009. "A defence of the FOMC," Economics Series Working Papers 457, University of Oxford, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  7. António Afonso & Vítor Gaspar, 2006. "Excess burden and the cost of inefficiency in public services provision," Working Paper Series 601, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Paolo Vitale, 2006. "A market microstructure analysis of foreign exchange intervention," Working Paper Series 629, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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