This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

You Might as Well be Hung for a Sheep as a Lamb: The Loss Function of an Agent

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Charles Goodhart ()
Margaret Bray ()
Abstract

Most of those who take macro and monetary policy decisions are agents.  The worst penalty which can be applied to these agents is to sack them.  Agents thus have loss functions which are bounded above.  We work with a bell loss function which has this property.  With additive uncertainty the certainty equivalence which holds for a quadratic loss function breaks down with a bell loss function when there are two or more targets.  With multiplicative (Brainard) uncertainty policy is more conservative than in the absence of multiplicative uncertainty, but less so with the bell than the quadratic loss function.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://fmg.lse.ac.uk/pdfs/dp418.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: Financial Markets Group Working Papers are free to download for academics and students, and for our subscribers and sponsors. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, or if you do not fall into one of these categories but would like to pay for a copy, please contact us at fmg@lse.ac.uk

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Financial Markets Group in its series FMG Discussion Papers with number dp418.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: Jul 2002
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:fmg:fmgdps:dp418

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://fmg.lse.ac.uk/

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (The FMG Administration).

Related research
Keywords:

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. Alberto Locarno, 2006. "Imperfect knowledge, adaptive learning and the bias against activist monetary policies," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 590, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Lars Svensson, 2006. "Optimal Inflation Targeting: Further Developments of Inflation Targeting," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 403, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
  3. Svensson, Lars E O, 2004. "Optimal Policy with Low-Probability Extreme Events," CEPR Discussion Papers 4218, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? IDEAS indexes over 800000 items of research in Economics alone.

This page was last updated on 2009-12-13.


This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.