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Firm-Specific Capital and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve

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Woodford, Michael

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Abstract

A relation between inflation and the path of average marginal cost (often measured by unit labor cost) implied by the Calvo (1983) model of staggered pricing – sometimes referred to as the "New Keynesian" Phillips curve – has been the subject of extensive econometric estimation and testing. Standard theoretical justifications of this form of aggregate-supply relation, however, either assume (1) the existence of a competitive rental market for capital services, so that the shadow cost of capital services is equated across firms and sectors at all points in time, despite the fact that prices are set at different times, or (2) that the capital stock of each firm is constant, or at any rate exogenously given, and so independent of the firm’s pricing decision. But neither assumption is realistic. The present paper examines the extent to which existing empirical specifications and interpretations of parameter estimates are compromised by reliance on either of these assumptions. The paper derives an aggregate-supply relation for a model with monopolistic competition and Calvo pricing in which capital is firm specific and endogenous, and investment is subject to convex adjustment costs. The aggregate-supply relation is shown to again take the standard New Keynesian form, but with an elasticity of inflation with respect to real marginal cost that is a different function of underlying parameters than in the simpler cases studied earlier. Thus the relations estimated in the empirical literature remain correctly specified under the assumptions proposed here, but the interpretation of the estimated elasticity is different; in particular, the implications of the estimated Phillips-curve slope for the frequency of price adjustment is changed. Assuming a rental market for capital results in a substantial exaggeration of the infrequency of price adjustment; assuming exogenous capital instead results in a smaller underestimate.

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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 825.

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Date of creation: 08 Feb 2005
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Publication status: Published in International Journal of Central Banking Number 2.Volume 1(2005): pp. 1-46
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:825

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G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General
G0 - Financial Economics - - General

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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.:
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  5. Martin Eichenbaum & Jonas D.M. Fisher, 2004. "Evaluating the Calvo Model of Sticky Prices," NBER Working Papers 10617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Tommy Sveen & Lutz Weinke, 2004. "Pitfalls in the Modeling of Forward-Looking Price Setting and Investment Decisions," Economics Working Papers 773, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
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  12. David E. Altig & Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2004. "Firm-specific capital, nominal rigidities, and the business cycle," Working Paper 0416, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
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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. Carlos Thomas, 2007. "Search Frictions, Real Rigidities and Inflation Dynamics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0822, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Timothy Cogley & Argia M. Sbordone, 2006. "Trend inflation and inflation persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Staff Reports 270, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. [Downloadable!]
  3. Andrew T. Levin & Alexei Onatski & John C. Williams & Noah Williams, 2005. "Monetary Policy Under Uncertainty in Micro-Founded Macroeconometric Models," NBER Working Papers 11523, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. BOUAKEZ, Hafed & CARDIA Emanuela & RUGE-MURCIA, Francisco, 2005. "The Transmission of Monetary Policy in a Multi-Sector Economy," Cahiers de recherche 2005-16, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques. [Downloadable!]
  5. Kuralbayeva, Karlygash & Vines, David, 2006. "Terms of Trade Shocks in an Intertemporal Model: Should We Worry about the Dutch Disease or Excessive Borrowing?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5857, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Adam Hale Shapiro, 2006. "Estimating the New Keynesian Phillips Curve: a vertical production chain approach," Working Papers 06-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Maarten Dossche & Freddy Heylen & Dirk Van den Poel, 2006. "The kinked demand curve and price rigidity : evidence from scanner data," Research series 200610-11, National Bank of Belgium. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Yongseung Jung & Tack Yun, 2005. "Monetary policy shocks, inventory dynamics, and price-setting behavior," Working Paper Series 2006-02, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
  9. Philippe Jeanfils, 2008. "Imperfect exchange rate pass-through : the role of distribution services and variable demand elasticity," Research series 200808-19, National Bank of Belgium. [Downloadable!]
  10. Merkl, Christian & Snower, Dennis J., 2006. "Monetary Persistence, Imperfect Competition and Staggering Complementarities," CEPR Discussion Papers 5658, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Marcela Meirelles Aurelio, 2006. "Targeting inflation and the fiscal balance : what is the optimal policy mix?," Research Working Paper RWP 06-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. [Downloadable!]
  12. Andreas Hornstein & Alexander L. Wolman, 2005. "Trend inflation, firm-specific capital, and sticky prices," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Fall, pages 57-83. [Downloadable!]
  13. Carlos Thomas, 2006. "Search and Matching Frictions and Optimal Monetary Policy," CEP Discussion Papers dp0743, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  14. John Duffy & Wei Xiao, 2007. "Investment and Monetary Policy: Learning and Determinacy of Equilibrium," Working Papers 324, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2008. [Downloadable!]
  15. Andrew T. Levin & J. David López-Salido & Edward Nelson & Tack Yun, 2008. "Macroeconometric equivalence, microeconomic dissonance, and the design of monetary policy," Working Papers 2008-035, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
  16. Francesco FURLANETTO, 2007. "Fiscal Shocks and the Consumption Response when Wages are Sticky," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 07.11, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP. [Downloadable!]
  17. Robert S. Chirinko & Debdulal Mallick, 2008. "The Marginal Product of Capital: A Persistent International Puzzle," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  18. Tommy Sveen & Lutz Weinke, 2007. "Inflation Dynamics and Labor Market Dynamics Revisited," Kiel Working Papers 1368, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
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