IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedcwq/88286.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Output-Inflation Trade-offs and the Optimal Inflation Rate

Author

Listed:
  • Takushi Kurozumi
  • Willem Van Zandweghe

Abstract

In staggered price models, a non-CES aggregator of differentiated goods generates empirically plausible short- and long-run trade-offs between output and inflation: lower trend inflation flattens the Phillips curve and decreases steady-state output by increasing markups. We show that the aggregator reduces both the steady-state welfare cost of higher trend inflation and the inflation-related weight in a model-based welfare function for higher trend inflation. Consequently, optimal trend inflation is moderately positive even without considering the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates. Moreover, the welfare difference between 2 percent and 4 percent inflation targets is much smaller than in the CES aggregator case.

Suggested Citation

  • Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2020. "Output-Inflation Trade-offs and the Optimal Inflation Rate," Working Papers 20-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedcwq:88286
    DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-202020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202020
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.26509/frbc-wp-202020?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. Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2016. "Kinked Demand Curves, the Natural Rate Hypothesis, and Macroeconomic Stability," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 240-257, April.
    2. Robert King & Alexander L. Wolman, 1999. "What Should the Monetary Authority Do When Prices Are Sticky?," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 349-404, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Alves, Sergio Afonso Lago, 2014. "Lack of divine coincidence in New Keynesian models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 33-46.
    4. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2012. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in New Keynesian Models: Should Central Banks Raise Their Inflation Targets in Light of the Zero Lower Bound?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1371-1406.
    5. Carlsson, Mikael & Westermark, Andreas, 2012. "Labor-Market Frictions and Optimal Inflation," Working Paper Series 259, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    6. Guerrieri, Luca & Iacoviello, Matteo, 2015. "OccBin: A toolkit for solving dynamic models with occasionally binding constraints easily," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 22-38.
    7. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 341-370, February.
    8. Klaus Adam & Henning Weber, 2019. "Optimal Trend Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(2), pages 702-737, February.
    9. Botond Kőszegi & Paul Heidhues, 2008. "Competition and Price Variation When Consumers Are Loss Averse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1245-1268, September.
    10. Robert E. Hall, 2018. "New Evidence on the Markup of Prices over Marginal Costs and the Role of Mega-Firms in the US Economy," NBER Working Papers 24574, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Yasuo Hirose & Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2020. "Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Stability Revisited," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 255-274, July.
    12. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2012. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in New Keynesian Models: Should Central Banks Raise Their Inflation Targets in Light of the Zero Lower Bound?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1371-1406.
    13. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    14. Levin, Andrew & Yun, Tack, 2007. "Reconsidering the natural rate hypothesis in a New Keynesian framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 1344-1365, July.
    15. Levin, Andrew T. & David López-Salido, J. & Nelson, Edward & Yun, Tack, 2008. "Macroeconometric equivalence, microeconomic dissonance, and the design of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(Supplemen), pages 48-62, October.
    16. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1, March.
    17. Shirota, Toyoichiro, 2015. "Flattening of the Phillips curve under low trend inflation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 87-90.
    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. Kurozumi, Takushi & Van Zandweghe, Willem, 2022. "Macroeconomic changes with declining trend inflation: Complementarity with the superstar firm hypothesis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    2. Yasufumi Gemma & Takushi Kurozumi & Mototsugu Shintani, 2023. "Trend Inflation and Evolving Inflation Dynamics:A Bayesian GMM Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 506-520, December.
    3. Santoro, Sergio & Viviano, Eliana, 2022. "Optimal trend inflation, misallocation and the pass-through of labour costs to prices," Working Paper Series 2761, European Central Bank.
    4. Cecion, Martina & Coenen, Günter & Gerke, Rafael & Le Bihan, Hervé & Motto, Roberto & Aguilar, Pablo & Ajevskis, Viktors & Giesen, Sebastian & Albertazzi, Ugo & Gilbert, Niels & Al-Haschimi, Alexander, 2021. "The ECB’s price stability framework: past experience, and current and future challenges," Occasional Paper Series 269, European Central Bank.

    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. Yasufumi Gemma & Takushi Kurozumi & Mototsugu Shintani, 2023. "Trend Inflation and Evolving Inflation Dynamics:A Bayesian GMM Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 506-520, December.
    2. Guido Ascari & Argia M. Sbordone, 2014. "The Macroeconomics of Trend Inflation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 679-739, September.
    3. Cecion, Martina & Coenen, Günter & Gerke, Rafael & Le Bihan, Hervé & Motto, Roberto & Aguilar, Pablo & Ajevskis, Viktors & Giesen, Sebastian & Albertazzi, Ugo & Gilbert, Niels & Al-Haschimi, Alexander, 2021. "The ECB’s price stability framework: past experience, and current and future challenges," Occasional Paper Series 269, European Central Bank.
    4. Anthony M. Diercks, 2015. "The Equity Premium, Long-Run Risk, & Optimal Monetary Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-87, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Khan, Hashmat & Phaneuf, Louis & Victor, Jean Gardy, 2020. "Rules-based monetary policy and the threat of indeterminacy when trend inflation is low," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 317-333.
    6. Philippe Andrade & Jordi Gali & Herve Le Bihan & Julien Matheron, 2019. "The Optimal Inflation Target and the Natural Rate of Interest," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(2 (Fall)), pages 173-255.
    7. Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2016. "Kinked Demand Curves, the Natural Rate Hypothesis, and Macroeconomic Stability," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 240-257, April.
    8. Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2023. "A Theory of Intrinsic Inflation Persistence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(8), pages 1961-2000, December.
    9. Anthony Diercks, 2016. "The Equity Premium, Long-Run Risk, and Optimal Monetary Policy," 2016 Meeting Papers 207, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Jonathan Swarbrick, 2021. "Occasionally Binding Constraints in Large Models: A Review of Solution Methods," Discussion Papers 2021-5, Bank of Canada.
    11. Tom D. Holden, 2023. "Existence and Uniqueness of Solutions to Dynamic Models with Occasionally Binding Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1481-1499, November.
    12. Robert Amano & Malik Shukayev, 2012. "Risk Premium Shocks and the Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(8), pages 1475-1505, December.
    13. Michael T. Kiley & John M. Roberts, 2017. "Monetary Policy in a Low Interest Rate World," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 317-396.
    14. Ascari, Guido & Phaneuf, Louis & Sims, Eric R., 2018. "On the welfare and cyclical implications of moderate trend inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 56-71.
    15. Kurozumi, Takushi & Van Zandweghe, Willem, 2022. "Macroeconomic changes with declining trend inflation: Complementarity with the superstar firm hypothesis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    16. Antoine Lepetit, 2022. "The Optimal Inflation Rate with Discount Factor Heterogeneity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(7), pages 1971-1996, October.
    17. Tomohide Mineyama & Wataru Hirata & Kenji Nishizaki, 2019. "Inflation and Social Welfare in a New Keynesian Model: The Case of Japan and the U.S," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 19-E-10, Bank of Japan.
    18. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2018. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and Unemployment Volatility," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 637-673, June.
    19. Ishise, Hirokazu, 2022. "Optimal long-run inflation rate in an open economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    20. Klaus Adam & Henning Weber, 2023. "Estimating the Optimal Inflation Target from Trends in Relative Prices," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 1-42, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    non-CES aggregator; output-inflation trade-off; optimal trend inflation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedcwq:88286. 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: 4D Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbclus.html .

    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.