IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v186y2020ics0022053119301334.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stable near-rational sunspot equilibria

Author

Listed:
  • Evans, George W.
  • McGough, Bruce

Abstract

We introduce a new class of solutions to nonlinear forward-looking models called near-rational sunspot equilibria (NRSE). NRSE are natural nonlinear extensions of the usual sunspot equilibria associated with the linearized version of the economy, and are near-rational in that agents use the optimal linear forecasting model when forming expectations. Generic results for existence and stability under learning are established. NRSE in indeterminate nonlinear models are found to be stable under learning provided that the corresponding linearized model's minimal state variable solution is E-stable. NRSE are readily computable, and our results make it possible to use the standard linear tools to search for stable NRSE. We illustrate our results using a canonical nonlinear New Keynesian model.

Suggested Citation

  • Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2020. "Stable near-rational sunspot equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:186:y:2020:i:c:s0022053119301334
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2019.104987
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022053119301334
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2019.104987?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benhabib Jess & Farmer Roger E. A., 1994. "Indeterminacy and Increasing Returns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 19-41, June.
    2. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    3. Evans, George W., 1989. "The fragility of sunspots and bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 297-317, March.
    4. Marcet, Albert & Sargent, Thomas J., 1989. "Convergence of least squares learning mechanisms in self-referential linear stochastic models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 337-368, August.
    5. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2012. "Economic Growth with Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 3033-3058, October.
    6. Bullard, James & Mitra, Kaushik, 2002. "Learning about monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1105-1129, September.
    7. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2005. "Monetary policy, indeterminacy and learning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1809-1840, November.
    8. Jess Benhabib & Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2015. "Sentiments and Aggregate Demand Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 549-585, March.
    9. Thomas A. Lubik & Frank Schorfheide, 2004. "Testing for Indeterminacy: An Application to U.S. Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 190-217, March.
    10. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2005. "Stable sunspot solutions in models with predetermined variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 601-625, April.
    11. Benhabib, Jess & Evans, George W. & Honkapohja, Seppo, 2014. "Liquidity traps and expectation dynamics: Fiscal stimulus or fiscal austerity?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 220-238.
    12. Benhabib, Jess & Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2001. "The Perils of Taylor Rules," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 96(1-2), pages 40-69, January.
    13. Mariana García-Schmidt & Michael Woodford, 2019. "Are Low Interest Rates Deflationary? A Paradox of Perfect-Foresight Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 86-120, January.
    14. Duffy, John & Xiao, Wei, 2007. "Instability of sunspot equilibria in real business cycle models under adaptive learning," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 879-903, April.
    15. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Kahn, Charles M, 1980. "The Solution of Linear Difference Models under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1305-1311, July.
    16. Klaus Adam & Albert Marcet & Juan Pablo Nicolini, 2016. "Stock Market Volatility and Learning," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(1), pages 33-82, February.
    17. Woodford, Michael, 1990. "Learning to Believe in Sunspots," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 277-307, March.
    18. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    19. Hommes, Cars & Zhu, Mei, 2014. "Behavioral learning equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 778-814.
    20. Sergey Slobodyan & Raf Wouters, 2012. "Learning in a Medium-Scale DSGE Model with Expectations Based on Small Forecasting Models," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 65-101, April.
    21. Jordi Gal?, 2014. "Monetary Policy and Rational Asset Price Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 721-752, March.
    22. Cochrane, John H., 2017. "The new-Keynesian liquidity trap," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 47-63.
    23. Evans George W & McGough Bruce, 2005. "Indeterminacy and the Stability Puzzle in Non-Convex Economies," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-46, September.
    24. George W. Evans & Bruce Mcgough, 2018. "Interest‐Rate Pegs in New Keynesian Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(5), pages 939-965, August.
    25. Evans, George W. & Honkapohja, Seppo, 2003. "Existence of adaptively stable sunspot equilibria near an indeterminate steady state," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 125-134, July.
    26. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2011. "Representations And Sunspot Stability," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 80-92, February.
    27. Stefano Eusepi & Bruce Preston, 2018. "The Science of Monetary Policy: An Imperfect Knowledge Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(1), pages 3-59, March.
    28. Azariadis, Costas, 1981. "Self-fulfilling prophecies," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 380-396, December.
    29. Milani, Fabio, 2007. "Expectations, learning and macroeconomic persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 2065-2082, October.
    30. Wei Xiong & Hongjun Yan, 2010. "Heterogeneous Expectations and Bond Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(4), pages 1433-1466, April.
    31. Evans George W. & Honkapohja Seppo, 1994. "On the Local Stability of Sunspot Equilibria under Adaptive Learning Rules," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 142-161, October.
    32. Evans, George W & McGough, Bruce, 2018. "Equilibrium selection, observability and backward-stable solutions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 1-10.
    33. Benhabib, Jess & Evans, George W. & Honkapohja, Seppo, 2014. "Liquidity traps and expectation dynamics: Fiscal stimulus or fiscal austerity?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 220-238.
    34. Karel R. S. M. Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2014. "Fiscal Policy in an Expectations-Driven Liquidity Trap," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(4), pages 1637-1667.
    35. George Evans, 1985. "Expectational Stability and the Multiple Equilibria Problem in Linear Rational Expectations Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1217-1233.
    36. James Bullard & Stefano Eusepi, 2014. "When Does Determinacy Imply Expectational Stability?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55, pages 1-22, February.
    37. Guesnerie, Roger, 1986. "Stationary sunspot equilibria in an N commodity world," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 103-127, October.
    38. Farmer Roger E. A. & Guo Jang-Ting, 1994. "Real Business Cycles and the Animal Spirits Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 42-72, June.
    39. Costas Azariadis & Roger Guesnerie, 1986. "Sunspots and Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(5), pages 725-737.
    40. Hommes, Cars & Sorger, Gerhard, 1998. "Consistent Expectations Equilibria," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(3), pages 287-321, September.
    41. Jianjun Miao & Zhouxiang Shen & Pengfei Wang, 2019. "Monetary Policy and Rational Asset Price Bubbles: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1969-1990, May.
    42. Branch, William A. & McGough, Bruce, 2005. "Consistent expectations and misspecification in stochastic non-linear economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 659-676, April.
    43. Bray, Margaret M & Savin, Nathan E, 1986. "Rational Expectations Equilibria, Learning, and Model Specification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1129-1160, 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


    Cited by:

    1. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2020. "Equilibrium stability in a nonlinear cobweb model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    2. Evans, David & Li, Jungang & McGough, Bruce, 2023. "Local rationality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 216-236.
    3. Evans, David & Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2022. "The RPEs of RBCs and other DSGEs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hommes, Cars, 2018. "Behavioral & experimental macroeconomics and policy analysis: a complex systems approach," Working Paper Series 2201, European Central Bank.
    2. McClung, Nigel, 2020. "E-stability vis-à-vis determinacy in regime-switching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    3. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2005. "Stable sunspot solutions in models with predetermined variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 601-625, April.
    4. Berardi, Michele, 2015. "On the fragility of sunspot equilibria under learning and evolutionary dynamics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 251-265.
    5. Arifovic, Jasmina & Evans, George W. & Kostyshyna, Olena, 2020. "Are sunspots learnable? An experimental investigation in a simple macroeconomic model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    6. McGough, Bruce & Meng, Qinglai & Xue, Jianpo, 2013. "Expectational stability of sunspot equilibria in non-convex economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1126-1141.
    7. GEORGE W. EVANS & BRUCE McGOUGH, 2007. "Optimal Constrained Interest-Rate Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(6), pages 1335-1356, September.
    8. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja & Kaushik Mitra, 2022. "Expectations, Stagnation, And Fiscal Policy: A Nonlinear Analysis," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1397-1425, August.
    9. Evans George W & Honkapohja Seppo M.S. & Marimon Ramon, 2007. "Stable Sunspot Equilibria in a Cash-in-Advance Economy," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-38, January.
    10. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2005. "Monetary policy, indeterminacy and learning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1809-1840, November.
    11. Xiao, Wei, 2008. "Increasing Returns And The Design Of Interest Rate Rules," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 22-49, February.
    12. Evans, David & Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2022. "The RPEs of RBCs and other DSGEs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    13. Kuang, Pei & Mitra, Kaushik, 2016. "Long-run growth uncertainty," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 67-80.
    14. Branch, William A. & McGough, Bruce, 2009. "A New Keynesian model with heterogeneous expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 1036-1051, May.
    15. Thomas Lubik & Christian Matthes & Elmar Mertens, 2023. "Indeterminacy and Imperfect Information," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 49, pages 37-57, July.
    16. Evans, George W & McGough, Bruce, 2018. "Equilibrium selection, observability and backward-stable solutions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 1-10.
    17. Nakagawa, Ryuichi, 2015. "Learnability of an equilibrium with private information," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 58-74.
    18. Shea, Paul, 2016. "Short-sighted managers and learnable sunspot equilibria," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 117-126.
    19. Dmitri Kolyuzhnov & Anna Bogomolova, 2004. "Escape Dynamics: A Continuous Time Approximation," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 27, Econometric Society.
    20. Michael Woodford, 2013. "Macroeconomic Analysis Without the Rational Expectations Hypothesis," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 303-346, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    E-stability; Sunspot equilibria; Nonlinear dynamics; Indeterminacy; MSV principle;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C62 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E71 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on the Macro Economy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:186:y:2020:i:c:s0022053119301334. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.