IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_7706.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bounded Rationality, Monetary Policy, and Macroeconomic Stability

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco Ilabaca
  • Greta Meggiorini
  • Fabio Milani

Abstract

This paper estimates a Behavioral New Keynesian model to revisit the evidence that passive US monetary policy in the pre-1979 sample led to indeterminate equilibria and sunspot-driven fluctuations, while active policy after 1982, by satisfying the Taylor principle, was instrumental in restoring macroeconomic stability. The model assumes “cognitive discounting”, i.e., consumers and firms pay less attention to variables further into the future. We estimate the model allowing for both determinacy and indeterminacy. The empirical results show that determinacy is preferred both before and after 1979. Even if monetary policy is found to react only mildly to inflation pre-Volcker, the substantial degrees of bounded rationality that we estimate prevent the economy from falling into indeterminacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Ilabaca & Greta Meggiorini & Fabio Milani, 2019. "Bounded Rationality, Monetary Policy, and Macroeconomic Stability," CESifo Working Paper Series 7706, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7706
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7706.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Del Negro & Marc P. Giannoni & Christina Patterson, 2023. "The Forward Guidance Puzzle," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 43-79.
    2. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    3. Xavier Gabaix, 2014. "A Sparsity-Based Model of Bounded Rationality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1661-1710.
    4. Thomas A. Lubik & Frank Schorfheide, 2004. "Testing for Indeterminacy: An Application to U.S. Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 190-217, March.
    5. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March.
    6. Francesco Bianchi, 2013. "Regime Switches, Agents' Beliefs, and Post-World War II U.S. Macroeconomic Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(2), pages 463-490.
    7. Milani, Fabio, 2014. "Learning and time-varying macroeconomic volatility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 94-114.
    8. Gabaix, Xavier, 2015. "Behavioral Macroeconomics Via Sparse Dynamic Programming," CEPR Discussion Papers 11026, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Milani, Fabio, 2008. "Learning, monetary policy rules, and macroeconomic stability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 3148-3165, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ilabaca, Francisco & Milani, Fabio, 2021. "Heterogeneous expectations, indeterminacy, and postwar US business cycles," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    2. Budianto, Flora & Nakata, Taisuke & Schmidt, Sebastian, 2023. "Average inflation targeting and the interest rate lower bound," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    3. Agustín Arias & Benjamín García & Ignacio Rojas, 2023. "Forward Guidance: Estimating a Behavioral DSGE Model with System Priors," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 994, Central Bank of Chile.
    4. Chou, Jenyu & Easaw, Joshy & Minford, Patrick, 2023. "Does inattentiveness matter for DSGE modeling? An empirical investigation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    5. Atahan Afsar; José Elías Gallegos; Richard Jaimes; Edgar Silgado Gómez & José Elías Gallegos & Richard Jaimes & Edgar Silgado Gómez, 2020. "Reconciling Empirics and Theory: The Behavioral Hybrid New Keynesian Model," Vniversitas Económica 18560, Universidad Javeriana - Bogotá.
    6. Greta Meggiorini & Fabio Milani, 2021. "Behavioral New Keynesian Models: Learning vs. Cognitive Discounting," Working Papers 202103, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    7. Gerke, Rafael & Kienzler, Daniel & Scheer, Alexander, 2022. "On the macroeconomic effects of reinvestments in asset purchase programmes," Discussion Papers 47/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    8. Dobrew, Michael & Gerke, Rafael & Kienzler, Daniel & Schwemmer, Alexander, 2023. "Monetary policy rules under bounded rationality," Discussion Papers 18/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    9. Bounader Lahcen & Traficante Guido, 2023. "Robustly Optimal Monetary Policy in a Behavioral Environment," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 23(1), pages 521-550, January.
    10. Xi Wang & Jiayang Li & Guangbin Zhang, 2022. "Mixed Monetary–Fiscal Policies and Macroeconomic Fluctuations: An Analysis Based on the Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(2), pages 167-196, March.
    11. Meggiorini, Greta, 2023. "Behavioral New Keynesian Models: An empirical assessment," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zamarripa, Rene, 2021. "Estimating the Bank of Mexico’s reaction function in the last three decades: A Bayesian DSGE approach with rolling-windows," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    2. Best, Gabriela & Hur, Joonyoung, 2019. "Bad luck, bad policy, and learning? A Markov-switching approach to understanding postwar U.S. macroeconomic dynamics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 55-78.
    3. Andrew Foerster & Juan F. Rubio‐Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2016. "Perturbation methods for Markov‐switching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(2), pages 637-669, July.
    4. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2017. "Escaping the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1030-1058, April.
    5. Dennis Wesselbaum, 2022. "Cheap Talk in a New Keynesian Model," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 20(3), pages 661-691, September.
    6. Shayan Zakipour-Saber, 2019. "Monetary policy regimes and inflation persistence in the United Kingdom," Working Papers 895, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    7. Andrew T. Foerster, 2016. "Monetary Policy Regime Switches And Macroeconomic Dynamics," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(1), pages 211-230, February.
    8. Givens, Gregory E. & Salemi, Michael K., 2015. "Inferring monetary policy objectives with a partially observed state," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 190-208.
    9. Hilde C. Bjørnland & Vegard H. Larsen & Junior Maih, 2018. "Oil and Macroeconomic (In)stability," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 128-151, October.
    10. Francesco Bianchi & Martin Lettau & Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2016. "Monetary Policy and Asset Valuation," NBER Working Papers 22572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2014. "Dormant Shocks and Fiscal Virtue," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-46.
    12. Carboni, Giacomo, 2014. "Term premia implications of macroeconomic regime changes," Working Paper Series 1694, European Central Bank.
    13. Han, Jong-Suk & Hur, Joonyoung, 2020. "Macroeconomic effects of monetary policy in Korea: A time-varying coefficient VAR approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 142-152.
    14. Milani, Fabio, 2009. "Expectations, learning, and the changing relationship between oil prices and the macroeconomy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 827-837, November.
    15. Francesco Bianchi & Cosmin Ilut, 2017. "Monetary/Fiscal Policy Mix and Agent's Beliefs," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 113-139, October.
    16. Castelnuovo, Efrem, 2016. "Modest macroeconomic effects of monetary policy shocks during the great moderation: An alternative interpretation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB), pages 300-314.
    17. Fabio Milani, 2012. "The Modeling of Expectations in Empirical DSGE Models: A Survey," Advances in Econometrics, in: DSGE Models in Macroeconomics: Estimation, Evaluation, and New Developments, pages 3-38, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    18. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Pablo Guerrón-Quintana & Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez, 2010. "Fortune or Virtue: Time-Variant Volatilities Versus Parameter Drifting in U.S. Data," PIER Working Paper Archive 10-015, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    19. Choi, Jinho & Hur, Joonyoung, 2015. "An examination of macroeconomic fluctuations in Korea exploiting a Markov-switching DSGE approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 183-199.
    20. Pancrazi, Roberto, 2015. "The heterogeneous Great Moderation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 207-228.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Behavioral New Keynesian model; cognitive discounting; estimation under determinacy and indeterminacy; Taylor principle; active vs passive monetary policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • E70 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7706. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.