[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/86165.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ambiguity, monetary policy and trend inflation

Author

Listed:
  • Masolo, Riccardo M.
  • Monti, Francesca
Abstract
Allowing for ambiguity, or Knightian uncertainty, about the behavior of the policymaker helps explain the evolution of trend inflation in the US in a simple new-Keynesian model, without resorting to exogenous changes in the inflation target. Using Blue Chip survey data to gauge the degree of private sector confidence, our model helps reconcile the difference between target inflation and the inflation trend measured in the data. We also show how, in the presence of ambiguity, it is optimal for policymakers to lean against the private sectors pessimistic expectations.

Suggested Citation

  • Masolo, Riccardo M. & Monti, Francesca, 2017. "Ambiguity, monetary policy and trend inflation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86165, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:86165
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/86165/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guido Ascari & Tiziano Ropele, 2009. "Trend Inflation, Taylor Principle, and Indeterminacy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1557-1584, December.
    2. Michael T. Kiley, 2007. "Is Moderate-to-High Inflation Inherently Unstable?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 3(2), pages 173-201, June.
    3. Schmitt-Grohe, Stephanie & Uribe, Martin, 2007. "Optimal simple and implementable monetary and fiscal rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(6), pages 1702-1725, September.
    4. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    5. Lars Peter Hansen & Thomas J Sargent, 2014. "Three Types of Ambiguity," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: UNCERTAINTY WITHIN ECONOMIC MODELS, chapter 11, pages 379-430, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Michael Ehrmann & Sylvester Eijffinger & Marcel Fratzscher, 2012. "The Role of Central Bank Transparency for Guiding Private Sector Forecasts," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(3), pages 1018-1052, September.
    7. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2012. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in New Keynesian Models: Should Central Banks Raise Their Inflation Targets in Light of the Zero Lower Bound?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1371-1406.
    8. Andrew T. Levin & Jeremy M. Piger, 2003. "Is inflation persistence intrinsic in industrial economies?," Working Papers 2002-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    9. Del Negro, Marco & Eusepi, Stefano, 2011. "Fitting observed inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2105-2131.
    10. Marco Del Negro & Marc P. Giannoni & Frank Schorfheide, 2015. "Inflation in the Great Recession and New Keynesian Models," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 168-196, January.
    11. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 341-370, February.
    12. Benigno, Pierpaolo & Paciello, Luigi, 2014. "Monetary policy, doubts and asset prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 85-98.
    13. Ascari, Guido & Ropele, Tiziano, 2007. "Optimal monetary policy under low trend inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2568-2583, November.
    14. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    15. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    16. Adam, Klaus & Woodford, Michael, 2012. "Robustly optimal monetary policy in a microfounded New Keynesian model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(5), pages 468-487.
    17. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2012. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in New Keynesian Models: Should Central Banks Raise Their Inflation Targets in Light of the Zero Lower Bound?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1371-1406.
    18. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    19. Baqaee, David Rezza, 2020. "Asymmetric inflation expectations, downward rigidity of wages, and asymmetric business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 174-193.
    20. Jacobs,Donald P. & Kalai,Ehud & Kamien,Morton I. & Schwartz,Nancy L. (ed.), 1998. "Frontiers of Research in Economic Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521635387, September.
    21. Bidder, R.M. & Smith, M.E., 2012. "Robust animal spirits," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 738-750.
    22. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    23. Swanson, Eric T., 2006. "Have Increases in Federal Reserve Transparency Improved Private Sector Interest Rate Forecasts?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(3), pages 791-819, April.
    24. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "Why Has U.S. Inflation Become Harder to Forecast?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(s1), pages 3-33, February.
    25. Todd E. Clark & Taisuke Nakata, 2008. "Has the behavior of inflation and long-term inflation expectations changed?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 93(Q I), pages 17-50.
    26. Itamar Drechsler, 2013. "Uncertainty, Time-Varying Fear, and Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(5), pages 1843-1889, October.
    27. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2008. "Anticipated Utility And Rational Expectations As Approximations Of Bayesian Decision Making," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 185-221, February.
    28. Tack Yun, 2005. "Optimal Monetary Policy with Relative Price Distortions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 89-109, March.
    29. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    30. Timothy Cogley & Argia M. Sbordone, 2008. "Trend Inflation, Indexation, and Inflation Persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2101-2126, December.
    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. Martin Seneca, 2020. "Risk Shocks and Monetary Policy in the New Normal," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(6), pages 185-232, December.
    2. Baqaee, David Rezza, 2020. "Asymmetric inflation expectations, downward rigidity of wages, and asymmetric business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 174-193.
    3. 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.
    4. Hasui, Kohei, 2020. "A Note On Robust Monetary Policy And Non-Zero Trend Inflation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 1574-1594, September.
    5. Yoo, Donghoon, 2019. "Ambiguous information, permanent income, and consumption fluctuations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 79-96.
    6. 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.
    7. Milos Borozan & Loreta Cannito & Barbara Luppi, 2022. "A tale of two ambiguities: A conceptual overview of findings from economics and psychology," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 6(S1), pages 11-21, July.
    8. Le Thanh Ha & To Trung Thanh & Doan Ngoc Thang, 2021. "Welfare costs of monetary policy uncertainty in the economy with shifting trend inflation," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(1), pages 126-154, February.

    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. Guido Ascari & Argia M. Sbordone, 2014. "The Macroeconomics of Trend Inflation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(3), pages 679-739, September.
    2. Ascari, Guido & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Rossi, Lorenza, 2011. "Calvo vs. Rotemberg in a trend inflation world: An empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(11), pages 1852-1867.
    3. Yasufumi Gemma & Takushi Kurozumi & Mototsugu Shintani, 2023. "Trend Inflation and Evolving Inflation Dynamics:A Bayesian GMM Analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 506-520, December.
    4. Guido Ascari & Tiziano Ropele, 2009. "Trend Inflation, Taylor Principle, and Indeterminacy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1557-1584, December.
    5. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and the Great Moderation: An Alternative Interpretation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 341-370, February.
    6. Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2016. "Kinked Demand Curves, the Natural Rate Hypothesis, and Macroeconomic Stability," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 20, pages 240-257, April.
    7. Sergio A. Lago Alves, 2018. "Monetary Policy, Trend Inflation, and Unemployment Volatility," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 637-673, June.
    8. Alves, Sergio Afonso Lago, 2014. "Lack of divine coincidence in New Keynesian models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 33-46.
    9. Olmos, Lorena & Sanso Frago, Marcos, 2014. "Monetary policy and growth with trend inflation and financial frictions," MPRA Paper 54606, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Riccardo M. Masolo & Francesca Monti, 2015. "Monetary Policy with Ambiguity Averse Agents," Discussion Papers 1506, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    11. Ascari, Guido & Phaneuf, Louis & Sims, Eric R., 2018. "On the welfare and cyclical implications of moderate trend inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 56-71.
    12. Yasuo Hirose & Takushi Kurozumi & Willem Van Zandweghe, 2020. "Monetary Policy and Macroeconomic Stability Revisited," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 255-274, July.
    13. Kurozumi, Takushi & Van Zandweghe, Willem, 2017. "Trend Inflation And Equilibrium Stability: Firm-Specific Versus Homogeneous Labor," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 947-981, June.
    14. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2011. "Strategic Interaction among Heterogeneous Price-Setters in an Estimated DSGE Model," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 920-940, August.
    15. Anthony M. Diercks, 2015. "The Equity Premium, Long-Run Risk, & Optimal Monetary Policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-87, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Volker Hahn, 2022. "Price Dispersion and the Costs of Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(2-3), pages 459-491, March.
    17. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2018. "Constrained Discretion and Central Bank Transparency," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 187-202, March.
    18. Khan, Hashmat & Phaneuf, Louis & Victor, Jean Gardy, 2020. "Rules-based monetary policy and the threat of indeterminacy when trend inflation is low," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 317-333.
    19. Gerko Elena & Sossounov Kirill, 2015. "Trend inflation and monetary policy rules: determinacy analysis in New Keynesian model with capital accumulation," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 413-441, January.
    20. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Johannes Wieland, 2012. "The Optimal Inflation Rate in New Keynesian Models: Should Central Banks Raise Their Inflation Targets in Light of the Zero Lower Bound?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1371-1406.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ambiguity aversion; monetary policy; trend inflation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • 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

    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:ehl:lserod:86165. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.