IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/32557.html

Heterogeneity and Aggregate Fluctuations: Insights from TANK Models

Author

Listed:
  • Davide Debortoli
  • Jordi Galí

Abstract

We analyze the merits and limitations of simple tractable New Keynesian models (RANK and TANK) in accounting for the aggregate predictions of Heterogenous Agent New Keynesian models (HANK). By means of comparison of a number of nested HANK models, we investigate the role played by (i) idiosyncratic income risk, (ii) a binding borrowing constraint, and (iii) a portfolio choice between liquid and illiquid assets. We argue that the effects of household heterogeneity can be largely understood looking at the differential behavior of two types of households: hand-to-mouth and unconstrained. We find that a suitably specified and calibrated TANK model (which abstracts from idiosyncratic income risk) can capture reasonably well the aggregate implications of household heterogeneity and the main channels through which it operates. That ability increases in the presence of a policy rule that emphasizes inflation stability. In the limiting case of a strict inflation targeting policy, heterogeneity becomes irrelevant for the determination of aggregate output.

Suggested Citation

  • Davide Debortoli & Jordi Galí, 2024. "Heterogeneity and Aggregate Fluctuations: Insights from TANK Models," NBER Working Papers 32557, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32557
    Note: EFG ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w32557.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Drago Bergholt & Øistein Røisland & Tommy Sveen & Ragnar Torvik, 2025. "Should Monetary And Fiscal Policy Pull In The Same Direction?," Working Papers No 06/2025, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    2. Brendan Brundage & Dan McGee & Daniele Tavani, 2026. "Theoretical Approaches in Stratification Economics," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Race and Stratification, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Bilbiie, F. O. & Galaasen, S. M. & Gurkaynak, R. S. & Maehlum, M. & Molnar, K, 2025. "Hanksson," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2516, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Davide Debortoli & Jordi Galí, 2025. "Heterogeneity and aggregate consumption: An empirical assessment," Economics Working Papers 1903, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    5. Bilbiie, Florin O. & Monacelli, Tommaso & Perotti, Roberto, 2024. "Stabilization vs. Redistribution: The optimal monetary–fiscal mix," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(S).
    6. repec:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2025_624 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Boehnert, Lukas & de Ferra, Sergio & Mitman, Kurt & Romei, Federica, 2025. "Monetary Policy in Currency Unions with Unequal Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 17950, IZA Network @ LISER.
    8. Bonciani, Dario & Oh, Joonseok, 2025. "Optimal monetary policy mix at the zero lower bound," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    9. Cristiano Cantore & Vedanta Dhamija, 2024. "The Perils of a Dual Mandate," Economics Series Working Papers 1059, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Bartocci, Anna & Cantelmo, Alessandro & Cova, Pietro & Notarpietro, Alessandro & Pisani, Massimiliano, 2024. "Monetary and fiscal policy responses to fossil fuel price shocks," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    11. Davide Debortoli & Jordi Galí, 2025. "Heterogeneity and Aggregate Consumption: An Empirical Assessment," Working Papers 1484, Barcelona School of Economics.
    12. Diamond, William & Landvoigt, Tim & Sánchez, Germán Sánchez, 2025. "Printing away the mortgages: Fiscal inflation and the post-covid boom," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    13. Kozo UEDA & Fei Gao, 2024. "How Do Gamblers React to Wins? Evidence from Bank Transaction Data in Japan," CIGS Working Paper Series 24-019E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    14. repec:cam:camjip:2421 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Jaanika Merikyll & Matthias Rottner, 2025. "Monetary policy and earnings inequality.Inflation dependencies," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2025-05, Bank of Estonia, revised 13 Jun 2025.
    16. Zheng Gong, 2025. "When Does Household Heterogeneity Matter for Aggregate Fluctuations?," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_624v2, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany, revised Sep 2025.
    17. Magin, Jana Anjali & Neyer, Ulrike & Stempel, Daniel, 2025. "Cash or Cache? Distributional and business cycle implications of CBDC holding limits," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    18. repec:cam:camjip:2507 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    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:nbr:nberwo:32557. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.