Why Inflation Rose and Fell: Policy-Makers' Beliefs and U. S. Postwar Stabilization Policy
This paper provides an explanation for the run-up of U. S. inflation in the 1960s and 1970s and the sharp disinflation in the early 1980s, which standard macroeconomic models have difficulties in addressing. I present a model in which rational policy-makers learn about the behavior of the economy in real time and set stabilization policy optimally, conditional on their current beliefs. The steady state associated with the self-confirming equilibrium of the model is characterized by low inflation. However, prolonged episodes of high inflation ending with rapid disinflations can occur when policy-makers underestimate both the natural rate of unemployment and the persistence of inflation in the Phillips curve. I estimate the model using likelihood methods. The estimation results show that the model accounts remarkably well for the evolution of policy-makers' beliefs, stabilization policy, and the postwar behavior of inflation and unemployment in the United States.
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Volume (Year): 121 (2006)
Issue (Month): 3 ()
Pages: 867-901
| Handle: | RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:121:y:2006:i:3:p:867-901. |
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- Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005.
"Drift and Volatilities: Monetary Policies and Outcomes in the Post WWII U.S,"
Review of Economic Dynamics,
Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 262-302, April.
- Timothy Cogley & Thomas Sargent, "undated". "Drifts and Volatilities: Monetary Policies and Outcomes in the Post WWII US," Working Papers 2133503, Department of Economics, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University.
- Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2003. "Drifts and volatilities: monetary policies and outcomes in the post WWII U.S," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2003-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
- Athanasios Orphanides, 2002. "Monetary-Policy Rules and the Great Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 115-120, May.
- Athanasios Orphanides, 2002. "Monetary policy rules and the Great Inflation," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-8, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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