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The welfare consequences of monetary policy

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Federico Ravenna
Carl E. Walsh

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Abstract

We explore the distortions in business cycle models arising from inefficiencies in price setting and in the search process matching firms to unemployed workers, and the implications of these distortions for monetary policy. To this end, we characterize the tax instruments that would implement the first best equilibrium allocations and then examine the trade-offs faced by monetary policy when these tax instruments are unavailable. Our findings are that the welfare cost of search inefficiency can be large, but the incentive for policy to deviate from the inefficient flexible-price allocation is in general small. Sizable welfare gains are available if the steady state of the economy is inefficient, and these gains do not depend on the existence of an inefficient dispersion of wages. Finally, the gains from deviating from price stability are larger in economies with more volatile labor flows, as in the U.S.

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in its series Working Paper Series with number 2009-12.

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Date of creation: 2009
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2009-12

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Keywords: Labor market;

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  4. Hosios, Arthur J, 1990. "On the Efficiency of Matching and Related Models of Search and Unemployment," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(2), pages 279-98, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Bernardino Adão & Isabel Correia & Pedro Teles, 2001. "Gaps and triangles," Working Paper Series WP-01-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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  8. David M. Arseneau & Sanjay K. Chugh, 2007. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy with costly wage bargaining," International Finance Discussion Papers 893, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  11. Régis Barnichon, 2007. "The Shimer Puzzle and the Correct Identification of Productivity Shocks," CEP Discussion Papers dp0823, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  12. Cooley, Thomas F. & Quadrini, Vincenzo, 1999. "A neoclassical model of the Phillips curve relation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 165-193, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2003. "Optimal Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 70(4), pages 825-860, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Robert Shimer, 2004. "The Consequences of Rigid Wages in Search Models," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 469-479, 04/05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Faia, Ester, 2008. "Optimal monetary policy rules with labor market frictions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 1600-1621, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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