IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed019/1537.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Managing Expectations without Rational Expectations

Author

Listed:
  • George-Marios Angeletos

    (M.I.T.)

  • Karthik Sastry

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Should a policymaker offer forward guidance by committing to a path for the policy instrument or a target for an equilibrium outcome? We study how the optimal approach depends on plausible bounds on agents’ depth of knowledge and rationality. Agents make mistakes in predicting, or reasoning about, the behavior of others and the GE effects of policy. The optimal policy minimizes the bite of such mistakes on implementability and welfare. This goal is achieved by fixing and com- municating an outcome target if and only if the GE feedback is strong enough. Our results suggest that central banks should stop talking about interest rates and start talking about unemployment when faced with a steep Keynesian cross or a prolonged liquidity trap.

Suggested Citation

  • George-Marios Angeletos & Karthik Sastry, 2019. "Managing Expectations without Rational Expectations," 2019 Meeting Papers 1537, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed019:1537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2019/paper_1537.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    2. Angeletos, George-Marios & La’O, Jennifer, 2009. "Incomplete information, higher-order beliefs and price inertia," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(S), pages 19-37.
    3. Dirk Bergemann & Stephen Morris, 2013. "Robust Predictions in Games With Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(4), pages 1251-1308, July.
    4. Manuel Amador & Pierre-Olivier Weill, 2010. "Learning from Prices: Public Communication and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(5), pages 866-907.
    5. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "What Can Survey Forecasts Tell Us about Information Rigidities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 116-159.
    6. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Saten Kumar & Jane Ryngaert, 2018. "Do You Know That I Know That You Know...? Higher-Order Beliefs in Survey Data," NBER Working Papers 24987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Emmanuel Farhi & Iván Werning, 2019. "Monetary Policy, Bounded Rationality, and Incomplete Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(11), pages 3887-3928, November.
    8. Dmitriy Sergeyev & Luigi Iovino, 2017. "Quantitative Easing without Rational Expectations," 2017 Meeting Papers 1387, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. William Poole, 1969. "Optimal choice of monetary policy instruments in a simple stochastic macro model," Special Studies Papers 2, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Andrew Atkeson & V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2007. "On the Optimal Choice of a Monetary Policy Instrument," NBER Working Papers 13398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. repec:cwl:cwldpp:1821rrr is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Alisdair McKay & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2016. "The Power of Forward Guidance Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 3133-3158, October.
    13. Nagel, Rosemarie, 1995. "Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1313-1326, December.
    14. Vincent P. Crawford & Miguel A. Costa-Gomes & Nagore Iriberri, 2013. "Structural Models of Nonequilibrium Strategic Thinking: Theory, Evidence, and Applications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 5-62, March.
    15. Sargent, Thomas J., 1993. "Bounded Rationality in Macroeconomics: The Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288695, Decembrie.
    16. William Poole, 1970. "Optimal Choice of Monetary Policy Instruments in a Simple Stochastic Macro Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(2), pages 197-216.
    17. Lars E. O. Svensson, 2006. "Social Value of Public Information: Comment: Morris and Shin (2002) Is Actually Pro-Transparency, Not Con," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 448-452, March.
    18. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Macroeconomics > Monetary Theory

    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. George-Marios Angeletos & Karthik A. Sastry, 2018. "Managing Expectations: Instruments vs. Targets," NBER Working Papers 25404, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2018. "Forward Guidance without Common Knowledge," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(9), pages 2477-2512, September.
    3. George-Marios Angeletos & Zhen Huo & Karthik A. Sastry, 2021. "Imperfect Macroeconomic Expectations: Evidence and Theory," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 1-86.
    4. George-Marios Angeletos, 2018. "Frictional Coordination," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 563-603.
    5. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    6. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 109-152, July.
    7. Bersson, Betsy & Hürtgen, Patrick & Paustian, Matthias, 2019. "Expectations formation, sticky prices, and the ZLB," Discussion Papers 34/2019, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    8. Iovino, Luigi & La’O, Jennifer & Mascarenhas, Rui, 2022. "Optimal monetary policy and disclosure with an informationally-constrained central banker," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 151-172.
    9. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2017. "Dampening General Equilibrium: From Micro to Macro," NBER Working Papers 23379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Drenik, Andrés & Perez, Diego J., 2020. "Price setting under uncertainty about inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 23-38.
    11. Camille Cornand & Frank Heinemann, 2008. "Optimal Degree of Public Information Dissemination," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 718-742, April.
    12. Bassetto, Marco, 2019. "Forward guidance: Communication, commitment, or both?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 69-86.
    13. Teeple, Keisuke, 2023. "Level-k predatory trading," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    14. Nagel, Rosemarie & Bühren, Christoph & Frank, Björn, 2017. "Inspired and inspiring: Hervé Moulin and the discovery of the beauty contest game," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 191-207.
    15. Mariana García-Schmidt & Michael Woodford, 2019. "Are Low Interest Rates Deflationary? A Paradox of Perfect-Foresight Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 86-120, January.
    16. Pascal Kieren & Christian König-Kersting & Robert Schmidt & Stefan Trautmann & Franziska Heinicke, 2023. "First-Order and Higher-Order Inflation Expectations: Evidence about Households and Firms," Working Papers 2023-10, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    17. Pavan, Alessandro & Vives, Xavier, 2015. "Information, Coordination, and Market Frictions: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 407-426.
    18. George-Marios Angeletos & Luigi Iovino & Jennifer La'O, 2016. "Real Rigidity, Nominal Rigidity, and the Social Value of Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(1), pages 200-227, January.
    19. Ehrmann, Michael & Gaballo, Gaetano & Hoffmann, Peter & Strasser, Georg, 2019. "Can more public information raise uncertainty? The international evidence on forward guidance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 93-112.
    20. Philippe Andrade & Gaetano Gaballo & Eric Mengus & Benoît Mojon, 2019. "Forward Guidance and Heterogeneous Beliefs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 1-29, July.

    More about this item

    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:red:sed019:1537. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.