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Near-Rationality and Inflation in Two Monetary Regimes

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Author Info
Laurence Ball
Abstract

Sticky-price models with rational expectations fail to capture the inertia in U.S. inflation. Models with backward-looking expectations capture current inflation behavior, but are unlikely to fit other monetary regimes. This paper seeks to overcome these problems with a near-rational model of expectations. In the model, agents make univariate forecasts of inflation: they use information on past inflation optimally, but they ignore other variables. The paper tests sticky-price models with near-rational expectations for two periods in U.S. history, the post-1960 period of persistent inflation and the period from 1879 to 1914, when inflation was not persistent. The models fit the data for both periods; in contrast, both rational-expectations and backward-looking models fail for at least one period.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7988.

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Date of creation: Oct 2000
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7988

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

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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. Ball, Laurence, 1991. "The Genesis of Inflation and the Costs of Disinflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 439-52, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Akerlof, George A & Yellen, Janet L, 1985. "Can Small Deviations from Rationality Make Significant Differences to Economic Equilibria?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 708-20, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Balke, Nathan S & Gordon, Robert J, 1989. "The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 38-92, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Alogoskoufis, George S & Smith, Ron, 1991. "The Phillips Curve, the Persistence of Inflation, and the Lucas Critique: Evidence from Exchange-Rate Regimes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1254-75, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Barsky, Robert B., 1987. "The Fisher hypothesis and the forecastability and persistence of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-24, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Laurence Ball, 1991. "The genesis of inflation and the costs of disinflation," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 439-461.
  7. Laurence Ball, 1991. "The Genesis of Inflation and the Costs of Disinflation," NBER Working Papers 3621, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles, 1996. "The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks: Evidence from the Flow of Funds," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 16-34, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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