In a plain-vanilla New Keynesian model with two-period staggered price-setting, discretionary monetary policy leads to multiple equilibria. Complementarity between the pricing decisions of forward-looking firms underlies the multiplicity, which is intrinsically dynamic in nature. At each point in time, the discretionary monetary authority optimally accommodates the level of predetermined prices when setting the money supply because it is concerned solely about real activity. Hence, if other firms set a high price in the current period, an individual firm will optimally choose a high price because it knows that the monetary authority next period will accommodate with a high money supply. Under commitment, the mechanism generating complementarity is absent: the monetary authority commits not to respond to future predetermined prices. We compute a traditional inflation bias equilibrium, in which price-setters are optimistic, rationally expecting small adjustments by other firms. But there is another steady-state equilibrium in which price setters are pessimistic and inflation is much higher. Further, we find that there are multiple equilibria at a point in time, not just in steady states. In a stochastic setting with equilibrium selection each period determined by an i.i.d. sunspot, there is greater inflation bias on average than if price-setters were always optimistic. The sunspot realization also has real effects: periods of higher than average inflation are accompanied by low output. Thus, increased real volatility may be an additional cost of discretion in monetary policy.
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.
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 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
9929.
Length: Date of creation: Aug 2003 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9929
Note: EFG ME Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Find related papers by JEL classification: E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Stefania Albanesi & V.V. Chari & Lawrence J. Christiano, .
"Expectation Traps and Monetary Policy,"
Working Papers
198, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
[Downloadable!]
Aubhik Khan & Robert King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2002.
"Optimal monetary policy,"
Working Papers
02-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2000.
"Optimal monetary policy,"
Working Paper
00-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
[Downloadable!]
Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2001.
"Optimal monetary policy,"
Working Papers
01-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
[Downloadable!]
Aubhik Khan & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2002.
"Optimal Monetary Policy,"
NBER Working Papers
9402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
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)
Julio Rotemberg, 1987.
"The New Keynesian Microfoundations,"
NBER Chapters,
in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 69-116
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
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.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.
Did you know? You can include your works in the database easily by uploading them on the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA) if you do not have access to an institutional RePEc archive.