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Discretionary Monetary Policy and Inflation Persistence

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Author Info
Niklas J. Westelius () (Hunter College)

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Abstract

Rational expectations models of staggered price/wage contracts have failed to replicate the observed persistence in inflation and unemployment during disinflation periods. The current literature on this persistency puzzle has focused on augmenting the nominal contract model with imperfect credibility and learning. In this paper, I re-examine the persistency puzzle by focusing on the discretionary nature of monetary policy. I show that when the central bank is allowed to re-optimize a quadratic loss function each period, imperfect credibility and learning, even in the absence of staggered contracts, can generate a significant amount of inflation persistence and employment losses during a disinflationary period.

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Paper provided by Hunter College: Department of Economics in its series Hunter College Department of Economics Working Papers with number 424.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:htr:hcecon:424

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Related research
Keywords: Monetary policy; Disinflation; Credibility; Inflation persistence;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

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  1. Laurence Ball, 1993. "What determines the sacrifice ratio?," Working Papers 93-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
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  2. Christopher J. Erceg and Andrew T. Levin, 2001. "Imperfect Credibility and Inflation Persistence," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 19, Society for Computational Economics.
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  3. Peter N. Ireland, 1995. "Optimal disinflationary paths," Working Paper 95-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Ireland, Peter N., 1999. "Does the time-consistency problem explain the behavior of inflation in the United States?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 279-291, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Edmund Phelps, 1978. "Disinflation without recession: Adaptive guideposts and monetary policy," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer, vol. 114(4), pages 783-809, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Robert J. Barro & David B. Gordon, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural-Rate Model," NBER Working Papers 0807, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. David Andolfatto & Paul Gomme, 1997. "Monetary Policy Regimes and Beliefs," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 48, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal, revised Apr 2001. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Huh, Chan G. & Lansing, Kevin J., 2000. "Expectations, credibility, and disinflation in a small macroeconomic model," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 51-86. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Fuhrer, Jeff & Moore, George, 1995. "Inflation Persistence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(1), pages 127-59, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Ball, Laurence, 1995. "Disinflation with imperfect credibility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 5-23, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Taylor, John B, 1983. "Union Wage Settlements during a Disinflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 981-93, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-91, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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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. Marco Bonomo & Carlos Carvalho, 2008. "Imperfectly credible disinflation under endogenous time-dependent pricing," Staff Reports 355, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Dai, Meixing & Sidiropoulos, Moïse & Spyromitros, Eleftherios, 2008. "Monetary policy transparency and inflation persistence in a small open economy," MPRA Paper 13829, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2009. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Marco Bonomo & Carlos Viana de Carvalho, 2005. "Endogenous Time-Dependent Rules and the Costs of Disinflation with Imperfect Credibility," Macroeconomics 0509004, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Marika Karanassou & Dennis Snower, 2007. "Inflation Persistence and the Philips Curve Revisited," Kiel Working Papers 1349, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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