IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2005-58.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Robustifying learnability

Author

Abstract

In recent years, the learnability of rational expectations equilibria (REE) and determinacy of economic structures have rightfully joined the usual performance criteria among the sought-after goals of policy design. Some contributions to the literature, including Bullard and Mitra (2001) and Evans and Honkapohja (2002), have made significant headway in establishing certain features of monetary policy rules that facilitate learning. However a treatment of policy design for learnability in worlds where agents have potentially misspecified their learning models has yet to surface. This paper provides such a treatment. We begin with the notion that because the profession has yet to settle on a consensus model of the economy, it is unreasonable to expect private agents to have collective rational expectations. We assume that agents have only an approximate understanding of the workings of the economy and that their learning the reduced forms of the economy is subject to potentially destabilizing perturbations. The issue is then whether a central bank can design policy to account for perturbations and still assure the learnability of the model. Our test case is the standard New Keynesian business cycle model. For different parameterizations of a given policy rule, we use structured singular value analysis (from robust control theory) to find the largest ranges of misspecifications that can be tolerated in a learning model without compromising convergence to an REE.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert J. Tetlow & Peter Von zur Muehlen, 2005. "Robustifying learnability," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-58, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2005-58
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2005/200558/200558abs.html
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2005/200558/200558pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walsh, Carl E., 2005. "Parameter misspecification and robust monetary policy rules," Working Paper Series 477, European Central Bank.
    2. Andrew Levin & Volker Wieland & John C. Williams, 2003. "The Performance of Forecast-Based Monetary Policy Rules Under Model Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 622-645, June.
    3. GEORGE W. EVANS & BRUCE McGOUGH, 2007. "Optimal Constrained Interest-Rate Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(6), pages 1335-1356, September.
    4. Marcet, Albert & Sargent, Thomas J., 1989. "Convergence of least squares learning mechanisms in self-referential linear stochastic models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 337-368, August.
    5. Bullard, James & Mitra, Kaushik, 2002. "Learning about monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1105-1129, September.
    6. Evans, George W. & McGough, Bruce, 2005. "Monetary policy, indeterminacy and learning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1809-1840, November.
    7. Marvin Goodfriend & Robert G. King, 1997. "The New Neoclassical Synthesis and the Role of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 231-296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Thomas A. Lubik & Frank Schorfheide, 2004. "Testing for Indeterminacy: An Application to U.S. Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 190-217, March.
    9. James Bullard & Stefano Eusepi, 2005. "Did the Great Inflation Occur Despite Policymaker Commitment to a Taylor Rule?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 324-359, April.
    10. 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.
    11. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg (ed.), 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026252242x, April.
    12. Andrew T.. Levin & Volker Wieland & John Williams, 1999. "Robustness of Simple Monetary Policy Rules under Model Uncertainty," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy Rules, pages 263-318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2003. "Adaptive learning and monetary policy design," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 1045-1084.
    14. Albert Marcet & Juan P. Nicolini, 2003. "Recurrent Hyperinflations and Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1476-1498, December.
    15. Tetlow, Robert J. & von zur Muehlen, Peter, 2001. "Simplicity versus optimality: The choice of monetary policy rules when agents must learn," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 245-279, January.
    16. Lubik, Thomas A. & Schorfheide, Frank, 2003. "Computing sunspot equilibria in linear rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 273-285, November.
    17. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja & Noah Williams, 2010. "Generalized Stochastic Gradient Learning," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(1), pages 237-262, February.
    18. Michael Woodford, 1999. "Optimal Monetary Policy Inertia," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 67(s1), pages 1-35.
    19. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Kahn, Charles M, 1980. "The Solution of Linear Difference Models under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1305-1311, July.
    20. J. Tetlow, Robert & von zur Muehlen, Peter, 2001. "Robust monetary policy with misspecified models: Does model uncertainty always call for attenuated policy?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(6-7), pages 911-949, June.
    21. 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.
    22. Garratt, Anthony & Hall, Stephen G., 1997. "E-equilibria and adaptive expectations: Output and inflation in the LBS model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(7), pages 1149-1171, June.
    23. James Bullard & Kaushik Mitra, 2007. "Determinacy, Learnability, and Monetary Policy Inertia," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(5), pages 1177-1212, August.
    24. repec:bla:scandj:v:104:y:2002:i:1:p:125-45 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Giordani, Paolo & Soderlind, Paul, 2004. "Solution of macromodels with Hansen-Sargent robust policies: some extensions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(12), pages 2367-2397, December.
    26. McCallum, Bennett T., 1983. "On non-uniqueness in rational expectations models : An attempt at perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 139-168.
    27. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2003. "Expectations and the Stability Problem for Optimal Monetary Policies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 807-824.
    28. Ehrmann, Michael & Smets, Frank, 2003. "Uncertain potential output: implications for monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1611-1638, July.
    29. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1997. "An Optimization-Based Econometric Framework for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 297-361, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. 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.
    31. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2006. "Monetary Policy, Expectations and Commitment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 108(1), pages 15-38, March.
    32. Onatski, Alexei & Stock, James H., 2002. "Robust Monetary Policy Under Model Uncertainty In A Small Model Of The U.S. Economy," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 85-110, February.
    33. Seppo Honkapohja & Kaushik Mitra, 2006. "Learning Stability in Economies with Heterogeneous Agents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(2), pages 284-309, April.
    34. Robert Tetlow & Peter von zur Muehlen, 2004. "Avoiding Nash Inflation: Bayesian and Robus Responses to Model Uncertainty," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 7(4), pages 869-899, October.
    35. Clarida, Richard & Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark, 1998. "Monetary policy rules in practice Some international evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1033-1067, June.
    36. 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.
    37. Alexei Onatski & Noah Williams, 2003. "Modeling Model Uncertainty," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1087-1122, September.
    38. Bray, Margaret, 1982. "Learning, estimation, and the stability of rational expectations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 318-339, April.
    39. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1997. "Editorial in "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12"," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    40. Giannitsarou, Chryssi, 2005. "E-Stability Does Not Imply Learnability," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 276-287, April.
    41. repec:bla:manchs:v:67:y:1999:i:0:p:1-35 is not listed on IDEAS
    42. Coenen, Gunter, 2007. "Inflation persistence and robust monetary policy design," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 111-140, January.
    43. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J., 2003. "Robust control of forward-looking models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 581-604, April.
    44. Giannoni, Marc P., 2002. "Does Model Uncertainty Justify Caution? Robust Optimal Monetary Policy In A Forward-Looking Model," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 111-144, February.
    45. Orphanides, Athanasios & Porter, Richard D. & Reifschneider, David & Tetlow, Robert & Finan, Frederico, 2000. "Errors in the measurement of the output gap and the design of monetary policy," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 117-141.
    46. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern97-1.
    47. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1.
    48. Volker Wieland & Andrew Levin & John C. Williams, 1999. "The Performance of Forward-Looking Monetary Policy Rules under Model Uncertainty," Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 1153, Society for Computational Economics.
    49. Nicoletta Batini & Joseph Pearlman, 2002. "Too Much Too Soon: Instability and Indeterminacy with Forward-Looking Rules," Discussion Papers 08, Monetary Policy Committee Unit, Bank of England.
    50. Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Interest-Rate Smoothing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(4), pages 861-886.
    51. 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.
    52. Bray, Margaret M & Savin, Nathan E, 1986. "Rational Expectations Equilibria, Learning, and Model Specification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1129-1160, September.
    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. Spahn Peter, 2009. "The New Keynesian Microfoundation of Macroeconomics," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 60(3), pages 181-203, December.
    2. Martin Ellison & Thomas J. Sargent, 2012. "A Defense Of The Fomc," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(4), pages 1047-1065, November.
    3. GEORGE W. EVANS & BRUCE McGOUGH, 2007. "Optimal Constrained Interest-Rate Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(6), pages 1335-1356, September.
    4. Mostafavi, Moeen & Shakouri G., Hamed & Fatehi, Ali-Reza, 2010. "Why the determinacy condition is a weak criterion in rational expectations models," MPRA Paper 28320, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Lubik, Thomas A. & Matthes, Christian, 2016. "Indeterminacy and learning: An analysis of monetary policy in the Great Inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 85-106.
    6. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2009. "Expectations, Learning and Monetary Policy: An Overview of Recent Research," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 2, pages 027-076, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Mostafavi, Moeen & Fatehi, Ali-Reza & Shakouri G., Hamed & Von zur Muehlen, Peter, 2011. "A predictive multi-agent approach to model systems with linear rational expectations," MPRA Paper 35351, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 Dec 2011.
    8. Ludwig, Alexander & Zimper, Alexander, 2014. "Biased Bayesian learning with an application to the risk-free rate puzzle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 79-97.
    9. Peter von zur Muehlen, 2022. "Prices and Taxes in a Ramsey Climate Policy Model under Heterogeneous Beliefs and Ambiguity," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-56, October.

    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. Michael Paetz, 2007. "Robust Control and Persistence in the New Keynesian Economy," Quantitative Macroeconomics Working Papers 20711, Hamburg University, Department of Economics.
    2. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2009. "Expectations, Learning and Monetary Policy: An Overview of Recent Research," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 2, pages 027-076, Central Bank of Chile.
    3. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_032 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. André Marine Charlotte & Dai Meixing, 2018. "Learning, robust monetary policy and the merit of precaution," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 1-20, June.
    5. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2009. "Expectations, Learning and Monetary Policy: An Overview of Recent Research," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 2, pages 027-076, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Bask, Mikael & Proaño, Christian R., 2016. "Optimal monetary policy under learning and structural uncertainty in a New Keynesian model with a cost channel and inflation inertia," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 112-126.
    7. Marc P. Giannoni, 2007. "Robust optimal monetary policy in a forward-looking model with parameter and shock uncertainty," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 179-213.
    8. GEORGE W. EVANS & BRUCE McGOUGH, 2007. "Optimal Constrained Interest-Rate Rules," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(6), pages 1335-1356, September.
    9. James Bullard & Kaushik Mitra, 2007. "Determinacy, Learnability, and Monetary Policy Inertia," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(5), pages 1177-1212, August.
    10. Marc Giannoni, 2006. "Robust Optimal Policy in a Forward-Looking Model with Parameter and Shock Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 11942, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Levin, Andrew T. & Williams, John C., 2003. "Robust monetary policy with competing reference models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 945-975, July.
    12. Andrew T. Levin & Alexei Onatski & John Williams & Noah M. Williams, 2006. "Monetary Policy under Uncertainty in Micro-Founded Macroeconometric Models," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 229-312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Bask, Mikael & Proaño, Christian R, 2012. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Learning in a New Keynesian Model with Cost Channel and Inflation Inertia," Working Paper Series 2012:7, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    14. Loisel, O., 2006. "Bubble-free interest-rate rules," Working papers 161, Banque de France.
    15. Bullard, James & Mitra, Kaushik, 2002. "Learning about monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1105-1129, September.
    16. Galí, Jordi, 2002. "New Perspectives on Monetary Policy, Inflation and the Business Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 3210, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Jagjit S. Chadha & Luisa Corrado, 2006. "On the Determinacy of Monetary Policy under Expectational Errors," CDMA Working Paper Series 200603, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, revised 15 Apr 2007.
    18. Marine Charlotte André & Meixing Dai, 2018. "The limits to robust monetary policy in a small open economy with learning agents," Working Papers of BETA 2018-45, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    19. Mele, Antonio & Molnár, Krisztina & Santoro, Sergio, 2020. "On the perils of stabilizing prices when agents are learning," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 339-353.
    20. Zhao, Mingjun, 2007. "Monetary policy under misspecified expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1278-1299, April.
    21. Huang, Kevin X.D. & Meng, Qinglai & Xue, Jianpo, 2009. "Is forward-looking inflation targeting destabilizing? The role of policy's response to current output under endogenous investment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 409-430, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Robust control; Monetary policy;

    JEL classification:

    • C6 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit

    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:fedgfe:2005-58. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.