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Can Wage and Price Stickiness Account for Sizeable Costs of Business Cycle Fluctuations?

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Author Info
Matthias Paustian
Abstract

This paper asks the following two questions: First, can a model with nominal rigidities in wage and price setting account for the average welfare costs of business cycle fluctuations identified in Gali, Gertler, and Lopez- Salido (2003)? Second, do we need to agree on a particular scheme for nominal rigidities to answer that question? We compute a quadratic approximation to agents expected lifetime utility and evaluate welfare for different modeling schemes of nominal rigidities that all have the same average duration of contracts. Calvo (1983) wage and price contracts can deliver sizeable welfare costs, but other contracts of the same average stickiness cannot. Calvo (1983) contracts can imply welfare costs that are up to 4 times higher than those implied by overlapping contracts in the spirit of Taylor (1980) or Wolman (1999). Furthermore, the sticky information framework of Mankiw and Reis (2002) may generate welfare costs that are even smaller. This paper calls for more research into the origins of wage and price stickiness.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University of Bonn, Germany in its series Bonn Econ Discussion Papers with number bgse18_2004.

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Length: 34
Date of creation: Oct 2004
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Handle: RePEc:bon:bonedp:bgse18_2004

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Postal: Bonn Graduate School of Economics, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24 - 26, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Fax: +49 228 73 9221
Web page: http://www.bgse.uni-bonn.de/index.php?id=494

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Related research
Keywords: welfare; Calvo; Taylor; sticky information; costs of nominal rigidities;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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  1. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information Versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal To Replace The New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Michael Woodford & Pierpaolo Benigno, 2004. "Inflation Stabilization and Welfare: The Case of a Distorted Steady State," 2004 Meeting Papers 481, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    Other versions:
  3. Matthew B. Canzoneri & Robert E. Cumby & Behzad T. Diba, 2004. "The Cost of Nominal Inertia in NNS Models," NBER Working Papers 10889, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Kollmann, Robert, 2002. "Monetary policy rules in the open economy: effects on welfare and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 989-1015, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Martin Eichenbaum & Jonas D.M. Fisher, 2004. "Evaluating the Calvo Model of Sticky Prices," NBER Working Papers 10617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Taylor, John B, 1980. "Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 1-23, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Jean-Pierre DANTHINE & John B. DONALDSON, 2002. "A Note on NNS Models: Introducing Physical Capital; Avoiding Rationing," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 02.04, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Yun, Tack, 1996. "Nominal price rigidity, money supply endogeneity, and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 345-370, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Michael Dotsey & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 1999. "State-Dependent Pricing And The General Equilibrium Dynamics Of Money And Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(2), pages 655-690, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Rochelle M. Edge, 2003. "A utility-based welfare criterion in a model with endogenous capital accumulation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-66, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  11. Guido Ascari, 2004. "Staggered prices and trend inflation: some nuisances," Macroeconomics 0404029, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  12. Erceg, Christopher J. & Henderson, Dale W. & Levin, Andrew T., 2000. "Optimal monetary policy with staggered wage and price contracts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 281-313, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Kimball, Miles S, 1995. "The Quantitative Analytics of the Basic Neomonetarist Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1241-77, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Pappa, Evi, 2004. "Do the ECB and the fed really need to cooperate? Optimal monetary policy in a two-country world," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 753-779, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark & Lopez-Salido, J. David, 2001. "European inflation dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1237-1270. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  16. Ball, Laurence & Romer, David, 1990. "Real Rigidities and the Non-neutrality of Money," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(2), pages 183-203, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles Evans, 2001. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 8403, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Kiley, Michael T, 2002. "Partial Adjustment and Staggered Price Setting," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 283-98, May.
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  19. Bennett McCallum, 2001. "Software for RE Analysis," QM&RBC Codes 144, Quantitative Macroeconomics & Real Business Cycles, revised Feb 2004. [Downloadable!]
  20. Amato, Jeffery D. & Laubach, Thomas, 2003. "Rule-of-thumb behaviour and monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 791-831, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Julio Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1997. "An Optimization-Based Econometric Framework for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 297-361 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  22. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1982. "Sticky Prices in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1187-1211, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Alexander L. Wolman, 1999. "Sticky prices, marginal cost, and the behavior of inflation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 29-48. [Downloadable!]
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