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Inflation, unemployment, and the time consistency of the US monetary policy

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  • Sachsida, Adolfo
  • Divino, Jose Angelo
  • Cajueiro, Daniel Oliveira

Abstract

This paper verifies the performance of the Barro and Gordon (1983) model to explain the US inflation since the early 1950s. We divide the period from 1951:2 to 2010:2 according to each chairman of the Federal Reserve (FED). In addition, we consider aggregated periods, represented by pre-Volcker, Volcker-Greenspan, Greenspan-Bernanke, and whole sample. A genetic algorithm of stochastic search is applied to reduce the sensitivity of the maximum likelihood estimator to the initial parameter values. Surprisingly, our results show that the time consistency problem explains the US inflation during the Greenspan chairmanship at the FED.

Suggested Citation

  • Sachsida, Adolfo & Divino, Jose Angelo & Cajueiro, Daniel Oliveira, 2011. "Inflation, unemployment, and the time consistency of the US monetary policy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 173-179, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:22:y:2011:i:2:p:173-179
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    2. Berggren, Niclas & Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov & Hellström, Jörgen, 2014. "Social trust and central-bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 425-439.
    3. Swastika, Putri & Masih, Mansur, 2016. "Do interest rate and inflation affect unemployment? evidence from Australia," MPRA Paper 100067, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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