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Discretionary Monetary Policy and Inflation Persistence

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.

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Paper provided by Hunter College Department of Economics in its series Economics Working Paper Archive at Hunter College with number 424.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:htr:hcecon:424
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Keywords: Monetary policy; Disinflation; Credibility; Inflation persistence;

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Find related papers by 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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  1. Chan Guk Huh & Kevin J. Lansing, 1997. "Expectations, credibility, and disinflation in a small macroeconomic model," Working Paper 9713, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
  2. Robert J. Barro & David B. Gordon, 1981. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural-Rate Model," NBER Working Papers 0807, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Richard Clarida & Jordi Gali & Mark Gertler, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," NBER Working Papers 7147, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. 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.
  5. David Andolfatto & Paul Gomme, 1997. "Monetary Policy Regimes and Beliefs," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 48, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal, revised Apr 2001.
  6. Jeff Fuhrer & George Moore, 1995. "Inflation Persistence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 110(1), pages 127-159.
  7. Laurence Ball, 1993. "What determines the sacrifice ratio?," Working Papers 93-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
  8. Laurence Ball, 1992. "Disinflation With Imperfect Credibility," NBER Working Papers 3983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. 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 473-91, June.
  10. Taylor, John B, 1983. "Union Wage Settlements during a Disinflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 981-93, December.
  11. Christopher J. Erceg & Andrew T. Levin, 2001. "Imperfect credibility and inflation persistence," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-45, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  12. Ball, Laurence, 1994. "Credible Disinflation with Staggered Price-Setting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 282-89, March.
  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.
  14. Peter N. Ireland, 1995. "Optimal disinflationary paths," Working Paper 95-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
  15. Peter N. Ireland, 1998. "Does the Time-Consistency Problem Explain the Behavior of Inflation in the United States?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 415, Boston College Department of Economics.
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Cited by:

  1. Naveen Srinivasan & Pankaj Kumar, 2012. "Inflation Persistence: Does Credibility of the Monetary Regime Matter?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(4), pages 2944-2954.
  2. 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.
  3. Li Qin & Moïse SIDIROPOULOS & Eleftherios Spyromitros, 2009. "Robust Monetary Policy under Model Uncertainty and Inflation Persistence," Working Papers of BETA 2009-09, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
  4. Agnieszka Leszczynska & Katarzyna Hertel, 2013. "Inflation persistence – a disaggregated approach," EcoMod2013 5692, EcoMod.
  5. Marco Bonomo & Carlos Viana de Carvalho, 2005. "Endogenous Time-Dependent Rules and the Costs of Disinflation with Imperfect Credibility," Macroeconomics 0509004, EconWPA.
  6. 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, 08.
  7. Karanassou, Marika & Snower, Dennis J., 2007. "Inflation persistence and the Philips curve revisited," Kiel Working Papers 1349, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  8. Karanassou, Marika & Snower, Dennis J., 2007. "Inflation Persistence and the Phillips Curve Revisited," IZA Discussion Papers 2600, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. Christoph S. Weber, 2016. "Central Bank Transparency and Inflation (Volatility) – New Evidence," Working Papers 163, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
  12. Naveen Srinivasan & Pankaj Kumar, 2015. "Can Univariate Time Series Models of Inflation Help Discriminate Between Alternative Sources of Inflation Persistence," Working Papers 2015-104, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
  13. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2015. "The Evolution of Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14611.
  14. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2014. "Monetary policy, inflation, and inflation volatility in Australia," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., vol. 36(4), pages 745-780, July.

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