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Designing Monetary Policy when Unemployment Persists

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  • Lockwood, B.
  • Miller, M.
  • Zhang, L.

Abstract

This paper investigates how unemployment persistence affects the various proposals advanced as solutions to the problem of inflation bias (namely delegation, contracts and reputation). First, the contract solution is extended to cover the dynamic case. However, as such contracts are not used in practice, we focus on delegation solution. We find that the delegation of policy to a conservative Central Banker still proves attractive in a setting where unemployment persists; but the degree of conservatism depends critically on how the Central Banker discounts the future. Where the Central Banker discounts the future hardly at all, we find that the appropriate strategy is to delegate to candidates who are more conservative the more persistant is unemployment. Finally, we consider briefly how reputational factors might affect this result.

Suggested Citation

  • Lockwood, B. & Miller, M. & Zhang, L., 1994. "Designing Monetary Policy when Unemployment Persists," Discussion Papers 9408, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:exe:wpaper:9408
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    Keywords

    monetary policy ; unemployment;

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