IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jmoncb/v40y2008i5p867-895.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A General Theory (and Some Evidence) of Expectation Traps in Monetary Policy

Author

Listed:
  • ROC ARMENTER

Abstract

I show that multiple equilibria are a general property of economies under full monetary policy discretion. Three simple conditions are sufficient to rule out, generically, a unique equilibrium in a static economy. The key departure from Barro and Gordon (1983) is to consider bounded welfare costs of inflation. I also show that in a two Markov equilibrium economy the inflation response to certain perturbations is, generically, qualitatively different in each equilibrium. Finally, I discuss some evidence on inflation dynamics that supports the hypothesis that U.S. monetary policy was caught in an expectation trap during the high inflation episode of the 1970s.

Suggested Citation

  • Roc Armenter, 2008. "A General Theory (and Some Evidence) of Expectation Traps in Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(5), pages 867-895, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jmoncb:v:40:y:2008:i:5:p:867-895
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1538-4616.2008.00140.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2008.00140.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1538-4616.2008.00140.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gali, Jordi & Lopez-Salido, J. David & Valles, Javier, 2003. "Technology shocks and monetary policy: assessing the Fed's performance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 723-743, May.
    2. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    3. Altissimo, Filippo & Corradi, Valentina, 2003. "Strong rules for detecting the number of breaks in a time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 207-244, December.
    4. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    5. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    6. Carlstrom, Charles T. & Fuerst, Timothy S., 2001. "Timing and real indeterminacy in monetary models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 285-298, April.
    7. 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.
    8. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1996. "Models of currency crises with self-fulfilling features," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 1037-1047, April.
    9. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    10. Calvo, Guillermo A, 1978. "On the Time Consistency of Optimal Policy in a Monetary Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1411-1428, November.
    11. Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 2004. "Monetary Discretion, Pricing Complementarity, and Dynamic Multiple Equilibria," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1513-1553.
    12. Andrew T. Levin & Jeremy M. Piger, 2003. "Is inflation persistence intrinsic in industrial economies?," Working Papers 2002-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    13. Stefania Albanesi & V. V. Chari & Lawrence J. Christiano, 2003. "Expectation Traps and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 715-741.
    14. Chari, V. V. & Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1998. "Expectation Traps and Discretion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 462-492, August.
    15. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1999. "Inflation targeting as a monetary policy rule," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 607-654, June.
    16. Albert Marcet & Juan P. Nicolini, 2003. "Recurrent Hyperinflations and Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1476-1498, December.
    17. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    18. Bernanke, Ben S & Woodford, Michael, 1997. "Inflation Forecasts and Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(4), pages 653-684, November.
    19. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March.
    20. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    21. Owyang, Michael T. & Ramey, Garey, 2004. "Regime switching and monetary policy measurement," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1577-1597, November.
    22. Michael Woodford, 2001. "The Taylor Rule and Optimal Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 232-237, May.
    23. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    24. Rapach, David E & Wohar, Mark E, 2005. "Regime Changes in International Real Interest Rates: Are They a Monetary Phenomenon?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 887-906, October.
    25. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    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. Jeffrey Campbell & Jacob Weber, 2021. "Discretion rather than rules: Equilibrium uniqueness and forward guidance with inconsistent optimal plans," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 41, pages 243-254, July.
    2. Barthelemy, Jean & Mengus, Eric, 2024. "Time-consistent implementation in macroeconomic games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 19(3), July.

    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. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Henrik Jensen, 2002. "Targeting Nominal Income Growth or Inflation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 928-956, September.
    4. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    5. P Arestis & A Mihailov, 2009. "Flexible Rules cum Constrained Discretion: A New Consensus in Monetary Policy," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 14(2), pages 27-54, September.
    6. repec:rdg:wpaper:em-dp2007-53 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat09b1bg is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Paul Hubert, 2010. "Monetary policy, imperfect information and the expectations channel [Politique monétaire,information imparfaite et canal des anticipations]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-04095385, HAL.
    9. Florin O. Bilbiie & Roland Straub, 2013. "Asset Market Participation, Monetary Policy Rules, and the Great Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 377-392, May.
    10. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2004. "Prudent Monetary Policy: Applications of Cautious LQG Control and Prediction," CEPR Discussion Papers 4222, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Roc Armenter, 2013. "The perils of nominal targets," Working Papers 14-2, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    12. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2007. "Prudent Monetary Policy and Cautious Prediction of the Output Gap," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/40, European University Institute.
    13. Orlando Gomes, 2004. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Heterogeneous Expectations," Macroeconomics 0409023, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2009. "Prudent monetary policy and prediction of the output gap," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 217-230, June.
    15. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2003. "What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 426-477, June.
    16. Kuikeu, Oscar, 2011. "Arguments contre la zone franc [Against the cfa franc zone]," MPRA Paper 33710, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. David Arseneau, 2012. "Expectation traps in a new Keynesian open economy model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(1), pages 81-112, January.
    18. Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2007. "Macroeconomic Modeling for Monetary Policy Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 25-46, Fall.
    19. Laura Coroneo & Valentina Corradi & Paulo Santos Monteiro, 2018. "Testing for optimal monetary policy via moment inequalities," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 780-796, September.
    20. Stefania Albanesi & V. V. Chari & Lawrence J. Christiano, 2003. "Expectation Traps and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 715-741.
    21. Bullard, James & Mitra, Kaushik, 2002. "Learning about monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1105-1129, September.
    22. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido, 2003. "Rule-of-Thumb Consumers and the Design of Interest Rate Rules," Working Papers 104, Barcelona School of Economics.
    23. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    24. Armenter, Roc & Bodenstein, Martin, 2008. "Can The U.S. Monetary Policy Fall (Again) In An Expectation Trap?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(5), pages 664-693, November.
    25. Schaumburg, Ernst & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2007. "An investigation of the gains from commitment in monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 302-324, March.

    More about this item

    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:wly:jmoncb:v:40:y:2008:i:5:p:867-895. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-2879 .

    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.