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Do we really know that U.S. monetary policy was destabilizing in the 1970s?

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  • Haque, Qazi
  • Groshenny, Nicolas
  • Weder, Mark

Abstract

The paper re-examines whether the Federal Reserve's monetary policy was a source of instability during the Great Inflation by estimating a sticky-price model with positive trend inflation, commodity price shocks and sluggish real wages. Our estimation provides empirical evidence for substantial wage-rigidity and finds that the Federal Reserve responded aggressively to inflation but negligibly to the output gap. In the presence of non-trivial real imperfections and well-identified commodity price-shocks, U.S. data prefers a determinate version of the New Keynesian model: monetary policy-induced indeterminacy and sunspots were not causes of macroeconomic instability during the pre-Volcker era.

Suggested Citation

  • Haque, Qazi & Groshenny, Nicolas & Weder, Mark, 2019. "Do we really know that U.S. monetary policy was destabilizing in the 1970s?," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 20/2019, Bank of Finland.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bofrdp:rdp2019_020
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    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
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies

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