Individual Expectations and Aggregate Macro Behavior
Abstract
The way in which individual expectations shape aggregate macroeconomic variables is crucial for the transmission and effectiveness of monetary policy. We study the individual expectations formation process and the interaction with monetary policy, within a standard New Keynesian model, by means of laboratory experiments with human subjects. Three aggregate outcomes are observed: convergence to some equilibrium level, persistent oscillatory behavior and oscillatory convergence. We fit a heterogeneous expectations model with a performance-based evolutionary selection among heterogeneous forecasting heuristics to the experimental data. A simple heterogeneous expectations switching model fits individual learning as well as aggregate macro behavior and outperforms homogeneous expectations benchmarks. Moreover, in accordance to theoretical results in the literature on monetary policy, we find that an interest rate rule that reacts more than point for point to inflation has some stabilizing effects on inflation in our experimental economies, although convergence can be slow in presence of evolutionary learning.Download Info
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Paper provided by Tinbergen Institute in its series Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers with number 13-016/II.Length:
Date of creation: 14 Jan 2013
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20130016
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Related research
Keywords: Experiments; New Keynesian Macro Model; Monetary Policy; Expectations; Heterogeneity;Other versions of this item:
- Assenza, T. & Heemeijer, P. & Hommes, C.H. & Massaro, D., 2011. "Individual Expectations and Aggregate Macro Behavior," CeNDEF Working Papers 11-01, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
- Tiziana Assenza & Peter Heemeijer & Cars Hommes & Domenica Massaro, 2011. "Individual Expectations and Aggregate Macro Behavior," DNB Working Papers 298, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
- C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
- C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
- D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
- E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2013-01-26 (All new papers)
- NEP-CBE-2013-01-26 (Cognitive & Behavioural Economics)
- NEP-EVO-2013-01-26 (Evolutionary Economics)
- NEP-EXP-2013-01-26 (Experimental Economics)
- NEP-MAC-2013-01-26 (Macroeconomics)
- NEP-MON-2013-01-26 (Monetary Economics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
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