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What We Don't Know Doesn't Hurt Us: Rational Inattention and the Permanent Income Hypothesis in General Equilibrium

Author

Listed:
  • Jun Nie

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

  • Gaowang Wang

    (Shandong University)

  • Eric Young

    (University of Virginia)

  • Yulei Luo

    (The University of Hong Kong)

Abstract

This paper derives the general equilibrium effects of rational inattention (or RI; Sims 2003, 2010) in a model of incomplete income insurance (Huggett 1993, Wang 2003). We show that, under the assumption of CARA utility with Gaussian shocks, the permanent income hypothesis (PIH) arises in steady state equilibrium due to a balancing of precautionary savings and impatience. We then explore how RI affects the equilibrium joint dynamics of consumption, income and wealth, and find that elastic attention can make the model fit the data better. We finally show that the welfare costs of incomplete information are even smaller due to general equilibrium adjustments in interest rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Jun Nie & Gaowang Wang & Eric Young & Yulei Luo, 2015. "What We Don't Know Doesn't Hurt Us: Rational Inattention and the Permanent Income Hypothesis in General Equilibrium," 2015 Meeting Papers 280, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed015:280
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. What we don’t know doesn’t hurt us: rational inattention and the permanent income hypothesis in general equilibrium
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2015-03-27 04:59:15
    2. What We Don’t Know Doesn’t Hurt Us: Rational Inattention and the Permanent Income Hypothesis in General Equilibrium
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2015-08-14 20:19:20

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    Cited by:

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

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