Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Monetary Policy Design under Imperfect Knowledge: An Open Economy Analysis

Contents:

Author Info

  • Yu-chin Chen

    (University of Washington)

  • Pisut Kulthanavit

    (University of Washington)

Abstract

This paper incorporates adaptive learning into a standard New-Keynesian open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model and analyze under what conditions policymakers should target domestic producer price inflation (DI) versus consumer price inflation (CI). Our goal is to examine how monetary policy rules should adjust when agents’ information sets deviate from those assumed under the rational expectation paradigm. When agents form expectations using an adaptive learning mechanism, even though the central bank has no informational advantage, monetary policy can nonetheless facilitate the learning process and thus mitigate distortions associated with imperfect knowledge. We assume the policy-maker follows a forwardlooking Taylor rule and focus on analyzing the interplay between the source of the dominant shock and the extent of knowledge imperfection. We find that when agents have very limited knowledge and have to learn the dynamics governing both the relevant economic indicators and the underlying structural shocks, a DI targeting rule introduces fewer forecast errors and is better at stabilizing the economy. However, when agents can observe contemporaneous shocks and need only learn how key economic variables evolve (a situation akin to a post-structural-shift economy), targeting away from the dominant shocks helps anchor expectations and improve welfare. A CI target can then become the preferred policy rule when the economy is subject to large domestic shocks.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.
File URL: http://faculty.washington.edu/yuchin/Papers/CK2.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University of Washington, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number UWEC-2008-14.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: May 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:udb:wpaper:uwec-2008-14

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Box 353330, Seattle, WA 98193-3330
Email:
Web page: http://www.econ.washington.edu/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
as in new window
  1. Svensson, Lars E. O., 2000. "Open-economy inflation targeting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 155-183, February.
  2. Clarida, Richard & Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1998. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," CEPR Discussion Papers 1908, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  3. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti, 2001. "Welfare And Macroeconomic Interdependence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(2), pages 421-445, May.
  4. James Bullard & Eric Schaling, 2009. "Monetary Policy, Determinacy, and Learnability in a Two-Block World Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1585-1612, December.
  5. Waters, George A., 2009. "Learning, Commitment, And Monetary Policy," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(04), pages 421-449, September.
  6. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2003. "Imperfect Knowledge, Inflation Expectations, and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 9884, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Benigno, Pierpaolo, 2001. "Optimal Monetary Policy in a Currency Area," CEPR Discussion Papers 2755, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  8. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "What measure of inflation should a central bank target?," Working Paper Series 170, European Central Bank.
  9. Aoki, Kosuke, 2001. "Optimal monetary policy responses to relative-price changes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 55-80, August.
  10. Clarida, Richard & Galí, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 2139, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  11. Alessia Campolmi, 2006. "Which inflation to target? A small open economy with sticky wages indexed to past inflation," Economics Working Papers 961, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
  12. Gianluca Benigno & Pierpaolo Benigno, 2003. "Price Stability in Open Economies," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 743-764, October.
  13. McCallum, Bennett T., 1998. "Solutions to linear rational expectations models: a compact exposition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 143-147, November.
  14. Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2007. "Macroeconomic modeling for monetary policy evaluation," Economics Working Papers 1039, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2007.
  15. McCallum, Bennett T., 1983. "On non-uniqueness in rational expectations models : An attempt at perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 139-168.
  16. Bruce Preston, 2003. "Learning about monetary policy rules when long-horizon expectations matter," Working Paper 2003-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  17. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 2002. "A simple framework for international monetary policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 879-904, July.
  18. Richard Clarida & Jordi Gali & Mark Gertler, 2001. "Optimal Monetary Policy in Open versus Closed Economies: An Integrated Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 248-252, May.
  19. Luis Gonzalo Llosa & Vicente Tuesta, 2006. "Determinacy and Learnability of Monetary Policy Rules in Small Open Economies," Research Department Publications 4479, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
  20. Milani, Fabio, 2007. "Expectations, learning and macroeconomic persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 2065-2082, October.
  21. Bullard, J. & Schaling, E., 2005. "Monetary Policy, Determinancy and Learnability in the Open Economy," Discussion Paper 2005-116, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
  22. Schmidt-Hebbel, Klaus & Tapia, Matias, 2002. "Inflation targeting in Chile," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 125-146, August.
  23. Chakraborty, Avik & Evans, George W., 2008. "Can perpetual learning explain the forward-premium puzzle?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 477-490, April.
  24. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Chang, Chia-ling & Chen, Shu-heng, 2011. "Interactions in DSGE models: The Boltzmann-Gibbs machine and social networks approach," Economics Discussion Papers 2011-25, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  2. Yu-chin Chen & Pisut Kulthanavit, 2008. "Adaptive Learning and Monetary Policy: Lessons from Japan," Working Papers UWEC-2008-12-P, University of Washington, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2008.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:udb:wpaper:uwec-2008-14

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael Goldblatt).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.