[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/12906.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Asymmetric Inflation Expectations, Downward Rigidity of Wages, and Asymmetric Business Cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Baqaee, David Rezza
Abstract
This paper shows that household expectations of the inflation rate are more responsive to inflationary news than to disinflationary news. This asymmetry in inflation expectations can be a source of downward nominal wage rigidity, since workers expectations adjust more quickly to inflationary shocks than disinflationary shocks. I embed asymmetric beliefs into a general equilibrium model and show that, in such a model, monetary policy has asymmetric effects on employment, output, and wage inflation consistent with the data. I microfound asymmetric household expectations using ambiguity-aversion: households, who do not know the quality of their information, overweight inflationary news since it reduces their purchasing power, and underweight deflationary news since it increases their purchasing power. Although wages are downwardly rigid in this environment, monetary policy need not have a bias towards using inflation to grease the wheels of the labor market.

Suggested Citation

  • Baqaee, David Rezza, 2018. "Asymmetric Inflation Expectations, Downward Rigidity of Wages, and Asymmetric Business Cycles," CEPR Discussion Papers 12906, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12906
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP12906
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2015. "Is the Phillips Curve Alive and Well after All? Inflation Expectations and the Missing Disinflation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 197-232, January.
    2. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2014. "Ambiguous Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2368-2399, August.
    3. Larry G. Epstein & Martin Schneider, 2008. "Ambiguity, Information Quality, and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(1), pages 197-228, February.
    4. Mary C. Daly & Bart Hobijn, 2014. "Downward Nominal Wage Rigidities Bend the Phillips Curve," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(S2), pages 51-93, October.
    5. Cosmin Ilut & Matthias Kehrig & Martin Schneider, 2018. "Slow to Hire, Quick to Fire: Employment Dynamics with Asymmetric Responses to News," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 2011-2071.
    6. Mark Schneider & Jonathan W. Leland & Nathaniel T. Wilcox, 2018. "Ambiguity framed," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 133-151, October.
      • Mark Schneider & Jonathan Leland & Nathaniel T. Wilcox, 2016. "Ambiguity Framed," Working Papers 16-11, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    7. Cosmin Ilut, 2012. "Ambiguity Aversion: Implications for the Uncovered Interest Rate Parity Puzzle," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 33-65, July.
    8. Uribe, Martín & Schmitt-Grohé, Stephanie, 2011. "Pegs and Pain," CEPR Discussion Papers 8275, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Riccardo M Masolo & Francesca Monti, 2021. "Ambiguity, Monetary Policy and Trend Inflation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 839-871.
    10. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    11. Silvana Tenreyro & Gregory Thwaites, 2016. "Pushing on a String: US Monetary Policy Is Less Powerful in Recessions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 43-74, October.
    12. Elsby, Michael W.L., 2009. "Evaluating the economic significance of downward nominal wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 154-169, March.
    13. Riccardo M Masolo & Francesca Monti, 0. "Ambiguity, Monetary Policy and Trend Inflation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 839-871.
    14. William T. Dickens & Lorenz Goette & Erica L. Groshen & Steinar Holden & Julian Messina & Mark E. Schweitzer & Jarkko Turunen & Melanie E. Ward, 2007. "How Wages Change: Micro Evidence from the International Wage Flexibility Project," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 195-214, Spring.
    15. J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "How Does Macroeconomic Policy Affect Output?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(2), pages 433-494.
    16. George A. Akerlof & William R. Dickens & George L. Perry, 1996. "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 1-76.
    17. Alessandro Barattieri & Susanto Basu & Peter Gottschalk, 2014. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Wages," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 70-101, January.
    18. Holden , Steinar & Wulfsberg, Fredrik, 2009. "Wage Rigidity, Institutions, and Inflation," Memorandum 03/2009, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    19. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2011. "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 373-416.
    20. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1973. "Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 326-334, June.
    21. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2004. "A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1055-1084, September.
    22. Supreet Kaur, 2014. "Nominal Wage Rigidity in Village Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 20770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Olivier Blanchard, 2016. "The Phillips Curve: Back to the '60s?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 31-34, May.
    24. Ernst Fehr & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2001. "Does Money Illusion Matter?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1239-1262, December.
    25. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    26. 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.
    27. Joshua D. Angrist & Òscar Jordà & Guido M. Kuersteiner, 2018. "Semiparametric Estimates of Monetary Policy Effects: String Theory Revisited," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 371-387, July.
    28. Camelia M. Kuhnen, 2015. "Asymmetric Learning from Financial Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2029-2062, October.
    29. Kim, Jinill & Ruge-Murcia, Francisco J., 2009. "How much inflation is necessary to grease the wheels?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 365-377, April.
    30. Guido Lorenzoni, 2010. "Optimal Monetary Policy with Uncertain Fundamentals and Dispersed Information ," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(1), pages 305-338.
    31. repec:fth:harver:1418 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Robert J. Shiller, 1997. "Why Do People Dislike Inflation?," NBER Chapters, in: Reducing Inflation: Motivation and Strategy, pages 13-70, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Epstein, Larry G. & Schneider, Martin, 2003. "Recursive multiple-priors," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 1-31, November.
    34. George A. Akerlof, 1982. "Labor Contracts as Partial Gift Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(4), pages 543-569.
    35. Santoro, Emiliano & Petrella, Ivan & Pfajfar, Damjan & Gaffeo, Edoardo, 2014. "Loss aversion and the asymmetric transmission of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 19-36.
    36. James Peery Cover, 1992. "Asymmetric Effects of Positive and Negative Money-Supply Shocks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1261-1282.
    37. Alberto Cavallo & Guillermo Cruces & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2016. "Learning from Potentially Biased Statistics," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(1 (Spring), pages 59-108.
    38. Lancaster, Tony, 2000. "The incidental parameter problem since 1948," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 391-413, April.
    39. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    40. Romer, Christina D, 1986. "Is the Stabilization of the Postwar Economy a Figment of the Data?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 314-334, June.
    41. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2016. "Learning from Inflation Experiences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 53-87.
    42. Alberto Cavallo & Guillermo Cruces & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2016. "Learning from Potentially Biased Statistics," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 52(1 (Spring), pages 59-108.
    43. Andrew Atkeson & Lee E. Ohanian, 2001. "Are Phillips curves useful for forecasting inflation?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 25(Win), pages 2-11.
    44. Robert E. Hall, 2005. "Employment Fluctuations with Equilibrium Wage Stickiness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 50-65, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Marmora, Paul, 2022. "Does monetary policy fuel bitcoin demand? Event-study evidence from emerging markets," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Riccardo M Masolo & Francesca Monti, 2021. "Ambiguity, Monetary Policy and Trend Inflation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 839-871.
    3. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Sergeyev, Dmitriy, 2021. "Zero Lower Bound on Inflation Expectations," IZA Discussion Papers 14853, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich & Johannes Wieland, 2020. "Secular Labor Reallocation and Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2245-2287.
    5. David O. Cushman & Glauco De Vita & Emmanouil Trachanas, 2023. "Is the Fisher effect asymmetric? Cointegration analysis and expectations measurement," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 3727-3748, October.
    6. khan, sajawal, 2018. "Managing the Expectations and Monetary Policy effectiveness: Role of Inflation Targeting," MPRA Paper 93170, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Feb 2019.
    7. Dmitri V. Vinogradov & Michael J. Lamla & Yousef Makhlouf, 2024. "Survey-based expectations and uncertainty attitudes," Working Papers 2024_02, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    8. Stefan Nagel & Zhen Yan, 2022. "Inflation Hedging on Main Street? Evidence from Retail TIPS Fund Flows," CESifo Working Paper Series 10118, CESifo.
    9. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2022. "Modeling Uncertainty as Ambiguity: a Review," NBER Working Papers 29915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Yoo, Donghoon, 2019. "Ambiguous information, permanent income, and consumption fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 79-96.
    11. Donayre, Luiggi, 2022. "On the behavior of Okun's law across business cycles," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    12. Tura-Gawron, Karolina, 2019. "Consumers’ approach to the credibility of the inflation forecasts published by central banks: A new methodological solution," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    13. Tsai, I-Chun, 2020. "Alternative explanation of the money illusion: The effect of unexpected low inflation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 110-123.
    14. Chen, Heng & Li, Xu & Pei, Guangyu & Xin, Qian, 2024. "Heterogeneous overreaction in expectation formation: Evidence and theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    15. Metiu, Norbert & Prieto, Esteban, 2023. "The macroeconomic effects of inflation uncertainty," Discussion Papers 32/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    16. Sias, Richard & Starks, Laura T. & Turtle, H.J., 2023. "The negativity bias and perceived return distributions: Evidence from a pandemic," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 627-657.
    17. Karolina Tura-Gawron & Maria Siranova & Karol Fisikowski, 2018. "ARE CONSUMER INFLATION EXPECTATIONS AN INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON? Results of spatial panel regressions models," GUT FME Working Paper Series A 50, Faculty of Management and Economics, Gdansk University of Technology.

    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. de Ridder, M. & Pfajfar, D., 2017. "Policy Shocks and Wage Rigidities: Empirical Evidence from Regional Effects of National Shocks," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1717, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Stéphane Dupraz & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2019. "A Plucking Model of Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 26351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Santoro, Emiliano & Petrella, Ivan & Pfajfar, Damjan & Gaffeo, Edoardo, 2014. "Loss aversion and the asymmetric transmission of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 19-36.
    4. Régis Barnichon & Christian Matthes, 2014. "Gaussian Mixture Approximations of Impulse Responses and the Nonlinear Effects of Monetary Shocks," Working Paper 16-8, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    5. Davide Debortoli & Mario Forni & Luca Gambetti & Luca Sala, 2020. "Asymmetric Effects of Monetary Policy Easing and Tightening," Center for Economic Research (RECent) 146, University of Modena and Reggio E., Dept. of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    6. Silvana Tenreyro & Gregory Thwaites, 2016. "Pushing on a String: US Monetary Policy Is Less Powerful in Recessions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 43-74, October.
    7. Christian Matthes & Regis Barnichon, 2015. "Measuring the Non-Linear Effects of Monetary Policy," 2015 Meeting Papers 49, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Pierpaolo Benigno & Luca Antonio Ricci, 2011. "The Inflation-Output Trade-Off with Downward Wage Rigidities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1436-1466, June.
    9. Iwasaki, Yuto & Muto, Ichiro & Shintani, Mototsugu, 2021. "Missing wage inflation? Estimating the natural rate of unemployment in a nonlinear DSGE model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    10. Claudio Michelacci & Luigi Paciello, 2020. "Aggregate Risk or Aggregate Uncertainty? Evidence from UK Households," EIEF Working Papers Series 2006, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Apr 2020.
    11. Yoo, Donghoon, 2019. "Ambiguous information, permanent income, and consumption fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 79-96.
    12. Davide Debortoli & Mario Forni & Luca Gambetti & Luca Sala, 2020. "Asymmetric monetary policy tradeoffs," Economics Working Papers 1742, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2023.
    13. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2022. "Modeling Uncertainty as Ambiguity: a Review," NBER Working Papers 29915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Ángelo Gutiérrez-Daza, 2024. "Business Cycles when Consumers Learn by Shopping," Working Papers 2024-12, Banco de México.
    15. Wataru Hirata & Toshitaka Maruyama & Tomohide Mineyama, 2020. "Flattening of the Wage Phillips Curve and Downward Nominal Wage Rigidity: The Japanese Experience in the 2010s," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 20-E-4, Bank of Japan.
    16. Yu, Edison G., 2018. "Dynamic market participation and endogenous information aggregation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 491-517.
    17. Nadav Ben Zeev, 2019. "Identification of Sign-Dependency of Impulse Responses," Working Papers 1907, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    18. Guihai Zhao, 2020. "Learning, Equilibrium Trend, Cycle, and Spread in Bond Yields," Staff Working Papers 20-14, Bank of Canada.
    19. Dräger, Lena & Lamla, Michael J. & Pfajfar, Damjan, 2020. "The Hidden Heterogeneity of Inflation and Interest Rate Expectations: The Role of Preferences," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-666, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät, revised Feb 2023.
    20. Larry G Epstein & Yoram Halevy, 2024. "Hard-to-Interpret Signals," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 393-427.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:cpr:ceprdp:12906. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.