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Discretionary Monetary Policy and Inflation Persistence

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Abstract

Rational expectations models of staggered price/wage contracts have failed to replicate the observed persistence in inflation and unemployment during disinflation periods. The current literature on this persistency puzzle has focused on augmenting the nominal contract model with imperfect credibility and learning. In this paper, I re-examine the persistency puzzle by focusing on the discretionary nature of monetary policy. I show that when the central bank is allowed to re-optimize a quadratic loss function each period, imperfect credibility and learning, even in the absence of staggered contracts, can generate a significant amount of inflation persistence and employment losses during a disinflationary period.

Suggested Citation

  • Niklas J. Westelius, 2005. "Discretionary Monetary Policy and Inflation Persistence," Economics Working Paper Archive at Hunter College 424, Hunter College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:htr:hcecon:424
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Taylor, John B., 1999. "Staggered price and wage setting in macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 1009-1050, Elsevier.
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    6. Laurence Ball, 1994. "What Determines the Sacrifice Ratio?," NBER Chapters, in: Monetary Policy, pages 155-193, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Ball, Laurence, 1995. "Disinflation with imperfect credibility," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 5-23, February.
    8. Taylor, John B, 1983. "Union Wage Settlements during a Disinflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 981-993, December.
    9. Huh, Chan G. & Lansing, Kevin J., 2000. "Expectations, credibility, and disinflation in a small macroeconomic model," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 51-86.
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    11. Ireland, Peter N., 1999. "Does the time-consistency problem explain the behavior of inflation in the United States?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 279-291, October.
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    13. Edmund Phelps, 1978. "Disinflation without recession: Adaptive guideposts and monetary policy," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 114(4), pages 783-809, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Marco Bonomo & Carlos Carvalho, 2010. "Imperfectly Credible Disinflation under Endogenous Time-Dependent Pricing," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(5), pages 799-831, August.
    2. Westelius, Niklas J., 2009. "Imperfect transparency and shifts in the central bank's output gap target," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 985-996, April.
    3. Christoph S. Weber, 2018. "Central bank transparency and inflation (volatility) – new evidence," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 21-67, January.
    4. Qin, Li & Sidiropoulos, Moïse & Spyromitros, Eleftherios, 2013. "Robust monetary policy under model uncertainty and inflation persistence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 721-728.
    5. Bonomo, Marco Antônio Cesar & Carvalho, Carlos Viana de, 2003. "Endogenous time-dependent rules and the costs of disinflation with imperfect credibility," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 505, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    6. Muhammad Omer & Jakob De Haan & Bert Scholtens, 2015. "An empirical analysis of excess interbank liquidity: a case study of Pakistan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(44), pages 4754-4776, March.
    7. Pankaj Kumar, 2015. "Can Univariate Time Series Models of Inflation Help Discriminate Between Alternative Sources of Inflation PersistenceAuthor-Name: Naveen Srinivasan," Working Papers 2015-104, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    8. van der Cruijsen, C.A.B., 2008. "The economic impact of central bank transparency," Other publications TiSEM 86c1ba91-1952-45b4-adac-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Naveen Srinivasan & Pankaj Kumar, 2012. "Inflation Persistence: Does Credibility of the Monetary Regime Matter?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(4), pages 2944-2954.
    10. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2015. "The Evolution of Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14611.
    11. Karanassou, Marika & Snower, Dennis J., 2007. "Inflation Persistence and the Phillips Curve Revisited," IZA Discussion Papers 2600, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Dai, Meixing & Sidiropoulos, Moïse & Spyromitros, Eleftherios, 2008. "Monetary policy transparency and inflation persistence in a small open economy," MPRA Paper 13829, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2009.
    13. Karanassou, Marika & Snower, Dennis J., 2007. "Inflation persistence and the Philips curve revisited," Kiel Working Papers 1349, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
    14. Geronikolaou, George & Spyromitros, Eleftherios & Tsintzos, Panagiotis, 2016. "Inflation persistence: The path of labor market structural reforms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 317-322.
    15. repec:eme:jespps:jes-10-2016-0214 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Akhand Hossain, 2014. "Monetary policy, inflation, and inflation volatility in Australia," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(4), pages 745-780.
    17. Agnieszka Leszczynska & Katarzyna Hertel, 2013. "Inflation persistence – a disaggregated approach," EcoMod2013 5692, EcoMod.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary policy; Disinflation; Credibility; Inflation persistence;

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

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