A New Keynesian Perspective on the Great Recession

With an estimated New Keynesian model, this paper compares the “Great Recession” of 2007–09 to its two immediate predecessors in 1990–91 and 2001. The model attributes all three downturns to a similar mix of aggregate demand and supply disturbances. The most recent series of adverse shocks lasted longer and became more severe, however, prolonging and deepening the Great Recession. In addition, the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate prevented monetary policy from stabilizing the U.S. economy as it had previously; counterfactual simulations suggest that without this constraint, output would have recovered sooner and more quickly in 2009.     

Estimating the New Keynesian Phillips Curve: A Vertical Production Chain Approach

It has become customary to estimate the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) with generalized method of moments using a large instrument set that includes lags of variables that are ad hoc to the firm's price-decision problem. Researchers have also conventionally used real unit labor cost (RULC) as the proxy for real marginal cost even though it is difficult to support its significance. This paper introduces a new proxy for the real marginal cost term as well as a new instrument set, both of which are based on the micro foundations of the vertical chain of production. I find that the new proxy, based on input prices as opposed to wages, provides a more robust and significant fit to the model. Instruments that are based on the vertical chain of production appear to be both more valid and relevant toward the model.     

International Evidence on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve Using Aggregate and Disaggregate Data

We present a unique empirical analysis of the properties of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) using an international data set of aggregate and disaggregate sectoral inflation. Our results from panel time‐series estimation clearly indicate that sectoral heterogeneity has important consequences for aggregate inflation behavior. Heterogeneity helps to explain the overestimation of inflation persistence and underestimation of the role of marginal costs in empirical investigations of the NKPC that use aggregate data. We find that combining disaggregate information with heterogeneous‐consistent estimation techniques helps to reconcile, to a large extent, the NKPC with the data.     

Fiscal Sustainability in a New Keynesian Model

Recent work on optimal monetary and fiscal policy in New Keynesian models suggests that it is optimal to allow steady‐state debt to follow a random walk. In this paper we consider the nature of the time inconsistency involved in such a policy and its implication for discretionary policymaking. We show that governments are tempted, given inflationary expectations, to utilize their monetary and fiscal instruments in the initial period to change the ultimate debt burden they need to service. We demonstrate that this temptation is only eliminated if following shocks, the new steady‐state debt is equal to the original (efficient) debt level even though there is no explicit debt target in the government's objective function. Analytically and in a series of numerical simulations we show which instrument is used to stabilize the debt depends crucially on the degree of nominal inertia and the size of the debt stock. We also show that the welfare consequences of introducing debt are negligible for precommitment policies, but can be significant for discretionary policy. Finally, we assess the credibility of commitment policy by considering a quasi‐commitment policy, which allows for different probabilities of reneging on past promises.     

A Survey of New Keynesian Theories of Aggregate Supply and Their Relation to Industrial Organization

I survey the recent literature on the Phillips curve. Along the way, I will try to relate this literature to topics of interest to industrial organization. I will also point out the gaps in our understanding and places where more careful micro‐economic analysis would be helpful to macroeconomists. In the conclusion, I summarize what an industrial organization economist might take away from this literature.     

FX Intervention in the New Keynesian Model

We develop an open-economy New Keynesian Model with foreign exchange (FX) intervention in the presence of a financial accelerator and shocks to risk appetite in international capital markets. We obtain closed-form solutions for optimal monetary and FX intervention policies assuming the central bank cannot commit to future policies, and we compare the solution to that under policy commitment. We show how FX intervention can help reduce the volatility of the exchange rate, of inflation, and of the output gap, thus mitigating welfare losses associated with shocks in the international capital markets. We also show that, when the financial accelerator is strong, there is a risk of indeterminacy (self-fulfilling currency and inflation movements) although FX intervention can reduce this risk and thus reinforce the credibility of the inflation targeting regime. Model simulations match well the impact of a VIX shock obtained by local projections on a panel of inflation targeting emerging markets.     

Business Cycle Implications of Internal Consumption Habit for New Keynesian Models

We study the implications of internal consumption habit for New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (NKDSGE) models. Bayesian Monte Carlo methods are employed to evaluate NKDSGE model fit. Simulation experiments show that internal consumption habit often improves the ability of NKDSGE models to match the spectra of output and consumption growth. Nonetheless, the fit of NKDSGE models with internal consumption habit is susceptible to the sources of nominal rigidity, to spectra identified by permanent productivity shocks, to the choice of monetary policy rule, and to the frequencies used for evaluation. These vulnerabilities indicate that the specification of NKDSGE models is fragile.     

Inflation and output in New Keynesian models with a transient interest rate peg

A familiar result in the canonical Dynamic New Keynesian (DNK) model is that policymakers constrained by the zero bound can improve outcomes by promising to keep rates low after the zero bound is not binding. We examine a general class of interest rate pegs in a variety of DNK models. Standard versions of the model produce counterintuitive reversals where the effect of the interest rate peg can switch from highly expansionary to highly contractionary for modest changes in the length of the interest rate peg. This unusual behavior does not arise in sticky information models of the Phillips curve.     

Optimal Monetary Policy with Countercyclical Credit Spreads

We study optimal monetary policy in a New‐Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with a credit channel and relationship lending in banking. We show that borrowers' bank‐specific (deep) habits give rise to countercyclical credit spreads, which, in turn, make optimal monetary policy depart substantially from price stability, under both discretion and commitment. Our analysis shows that the welfare costs of setting monetary policy under discretion (with respect to the optimal Ramsey plan) and of using simpler suboptimal policy rules are strictly increasing in the magnitude of deep habits in credit markets and market power in banking.     

Trend Inflation and the Nature of Structural Breaks in the New Keynesian Phillips Curve

We show that with a unit root in inflation, the new Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) implies an unobserved components model with a stochastic trend component and an inflation gap. Our empirical results suggest that with an increase in trend inflation during the Great Inflation, the response of inflation to real economic activity decreases and the persistence of the inflation gap increases due to an increase in the persistence of the unobserved stationary component. These results are in line with the predictions of Cogley and Sbordone ( 2008 ), who show that the coefficients of the NKPC are functions of time‐varying trend inflation.     

中国货币政策是规则还是相机抉择

货币政策操作规范问题一直是经济学家们争论的热点问题,本文对货币操作规则的"规则与相机抉择"之争进行了简单回顾,并对此进行评述。结合我国的货币政策实际,得出我国货币政策应坚持短期相机抉择,长期"不单一规则"。     

Non-Atomistic Wage Setters and Monetary Policy in a New Keynesian Framework

This paper extends an otherwise standard New Keynesian (NK) model to allow for the presence of large wage setters. Building on monetary models from an earlier generation, I contribute to the NK literature by adding some new insight. It is shown that once the presence of large wage setters is taken into account, the degree of wage setting centralization and the aggressiveness of the central bank in stabilizing inflation jointly affect steady state employment. Because of this interaction, the benefits associated with inflation stabilization increase in the centralization of the wage bargaining process.     

Inflation Dynamics and the New Keynesian Phillips Curve in Four Central European Countries

This paper seeks to shed light on the inflation dynamics of four new central European EU members: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. To this end, the New Keynesian Phillips curve augmented for open economies is estimated and additional statistical tests applied, with the following results: (1) the claim of New Keynesians that the real marginal cost is the main inflation-forcing variable is fragile, (2) inflation seems to be driven by external factors, and (3) although inflation holds a forward-looking component, the backward-looking component is substantial. An intuitive explanation for higher inflation persistence may be adaptive, rather than rational price setting of local firms.     

新凯恩斯主义的最优货币政策理论

从本质上看,以控制通货膨胀为目标是新凯恩斯主义的最优货币政策理论的核心.根据这一目标,中央银行必须把通货膨胀稳定在一个较低的水平上,同时缩小产出缺口;必须对通货膨胀的预测做出反应.新凯恩斯主义的最优货币政策观点揭示了中央银行的权力与职责以及实际货币政策的构成.     

An open-economy new Keynesian Phillips curve for the U.K.

We estimate a pricing equation or “new Keynesian Phillips curve” (NKPC) obtained from a structural dynamic model of price setting based on Rotemberg [1982. Sticky prices in the United States. Journal of Political Economy 90(6), 1187-1211] and extended to capture employment adjustment costs and the openness of the United Kingdom. This model nests the baseline Galí and Gertler [1999. Inflation dynamics: a structural econometric analysis. Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, 127-159) and Sbordone [2002. Prices and unit labor costs: a new test of price stickiness. Journal of Monetary Economics 49, 265-292] relationship between inflation and marginal cost in the limiting case of no employment adjustment costs, no impact of relative prices of imported inputs on real marginal cost and a constant equilibrium markup. Our findings indicate that each of our modifications to the baseline NKPC model is important for U.K. data, so that inflation in the U.K. is explained both by changes in employment and by changes in real import prices, in general, and real oil prices, in particular. External competitive pressures also seem to affect U.K. inflation via their impact on the equilibrium price markup of domestic firms.     

Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policy with a Zero Bound on Nominal Interest Rates

I characterize optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a stochastic New Keynesian model when nominal interest rates may occasionally hit the zero lower bound. The benevolent policymaker controls the short‐term nominal interest rate and the level of government spending. Under discretionary policy, accounting for fiscal stabilization policy eliminates to a large extent the welfare losses associated with the presence of the zero bound. Under commitment, the gains associated with the use of the fiscal policy tool remain modest, even though fiscal stabilization policy is part of the optimal policy mix.     

Role of monetary policy in a New Keynesian economy: a note from a laboratory experiment

This paper discusses an experimental study on the role of monetary policy within a New Keynesian macroeconomic framework. The novelty of this article is that each subject was asked to forecast both the inflation rate and output gap at the same time one period ahead, which is an improvement over the existing literature. We find that if both the expected inflation rate and expected output gap is incorporated in the monetary policy rule then inflation can be anchored and stabilized more efficiently.     

Determinacy, Learnability, and Monetary Policy Inertia

We show how monetary policy inertia can help alleviate problems of indeterminacy and non-existence of stationary equilibrium observed for some commonly studied monetary policy rules. We also find that inertia promotes learnability of equilibrium. The context is a simple, forward-looking model of the macroeconomy widely used in the rapidly expanding literature in this area. We conclude that this might be an important reason why central banks in the industrialized economies display considerable inertia when adjusting monetary policy in response to changing economic conditions.     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy Switching

A growing body of evidence finds that policy reaction functions vary substantially over different periods in the United States. This paper explores how moving to an environment in which monetary and fiscal regimes evolve according to a Markov process can change the impacts of policy shocks. In one regime monetary policy follows the Taylor principle and taxes rise strongly with debt; in another regime the Taylor principle fails to hold and taxes are exogenous. An example shows that a unique bounded non-Ricardian equilibrium exists in this environment. A computational model illustrates that because agents' decision rules embed the probability that policies will change in the future, monetary and tax shocks always produce wealth effects. When it is possible that fiscal policy will be unresponsive to debt at times, active monetary policy (like a Taylor rule) in one regime is not sufficient to insulate the economy against tax shocks in that regime and it can have the unintended consequence of amplifying and propagating the aggregate demand effects of tax shocks. The paper also considers the implications of policy switching for two empirical issues.     

A Note on Simple Strategic Bargaining for Models of Money or Credit

Many papers on liquidity have bilateral trade with buyers constrained by their money holdings or debt limits. Axiomatic bargaining, typically Nash, determines the terms of trade. However, there are reasons to prefer strategic bargaining. I analyze a bargaining game that is useful in models of liquidity. Advantages include (i) it has simple microfoundations, both in and out of steady state; (ii) it is more tractable than Nash, but the outcomes share interesting features; (iii) the benchmark version is consistent with axiomatic approaches in the literature, while another version is not, but can still be used; and (iv) it is arguably realistic.