The demand for money during a period of inflationary expectations. Some FIML based estimates for Greece

This paper estimates and tests a model of the demand for money function, which uses the public's expectations of future inflation as a proxy of the opportunity cost of holding money. The hallmark of the paper is that expectations are rational inMuth sense. The cross-equation rational expectations restrictions are derived and then tested, using quarterly Greek data of the high inflation period 1973I to 1981 IV. The paper concludes that the evidence is consistent with the rational expectations assumption and supports the adopted specification of the money demand function.     

How useful are measured expectations in estimation and simulation of a conventional small New Keynesian macro model?

This paper examines how measured expectations (survey data) affect the basic properties of a conventional small New Keynesian macro model. In particular, how do survey expectations change the role of persistence of inflation and output (i.e. coefficients of the corresponding lagged terms)? Survey data are modeled in several different ways, to facilitate an analysis of different relationships with rational expectations. The model is estimated by means of a Bayesian estimator from quarterly euro area data using both aggregated and micro level data from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters for 1999Q1–2012Q3. The broad finding is that the use of measured expectations produces more economically meaningful results than does the standard use of model-consistent rational expectations. In particular, survey expectations also reduce the relative weights of the lagged dependent variables in the Phillips curve and the IS curve. All this shows up in impulse responses that turn out to be quite different suggesting that measured expectations are not only proxies of rational expectations. By contrast, measured expectations are related to rational expectations with a way that may well reflect different adjustment and learning processes.     

Inflation Dynamics in the Euro Area and the Role of Expectations

This paper examines the empirical performance of the New Keynesian Phillips curve and its hybrid specification in the euro area. Instead of imposing rational expectations, direct measures, i.e. OECD forecasts, are used as empirical proxies for economic agents’ inflation expectations. Real marginal costs are proxied by three alternative measures. The results suggest that once the rational expectations hypothesis is relaxed and directly measured expectations are used, the European inflation process can be modeled using the forward-looking New Keynesian Phillips curve. However, when allowing for possible non-rationalities in expectations, inflation can be modeled more accurately by the hybrid Phillips curve with the additional lagged inflation term. In this approach, output gap turns out to be at least as good as labor income share as a proxy for real marginal cost. Moreover, the inflation process seems to have become more forward-looking in the recent years of low and stable inflation.The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bank of Finland. Special thanks are due to the editor, two anonymous referees, Juha Tarkka, Jouko Vilmunen and Matti Virén for useful comments. I am also grateful to David Mayes and Geoffrey Wood for helpful suggestions and to Heli Tikkunen for excellent research assistance. For their constructive comments, I would also thank participants in the conference on the Eurosystem Inflation Persistence Network at the ECB, which was held in Frankfurt in December 2003.     

The New Keynesian Phillips curve and the role of expectations: Evidence from the CESifo World Economic Survey

We provide evidence on the fit of the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curve for selected Euro zone countries, the US and the UK. Instead of imposing rational expectations and estimating the Phillips curve by the Generalized Method of Moments, we use direct measures of inflation expectations from the CESifo World Economic Survey. Our main findings are as follows: (i) The use of survey data gives empirical results, which are more reliable than those obtained from the GMM approach. (ii) The purely forward-looking Phillips curve can be rejected in favor of the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curve. (iii) The estimated coefficients on past inflation are higher when using survey expectations than when using the rational expectations GMM approach. (iv) It remains unclear whether real unit labor costs or a measure of the output gap should be used as a proxy for real marginal costs. (v) Theory-based restrictions lead to an improvement of the empirical results.     

Rational expectations in microeconomic models: An overview

This paper is an expository introduction to several topics of current research in the general equilibrium theory of rational expectations. More specifically, we discuss the existence of exact and approximate rational expectations equilibria, the implementation of equilibria, the behavior of learning and smoothing processes by which traders construct expectations from repeated observations of the market, and the lagged use of the information revealed by prices in an intertemporal sequence of markets. The purpose of this discussion is to introduce papers on these topics appearing in the Journal of Economic Theory Symposium on Rational Expectations in Microeconomic Models.     

Monetary Neutrality and Optimality with Symmetric Partial Information

The neutrality and optimality of countercyclical monetary policy are examined in a representative economy featuring competitive equilibria in multiple markets and rational expectations based on a form of private information about current stochastic innovations in the economy. A necessary and sufficient condition for the neutrality of monetary policy is stated in terms of restrictions on the parameters of the linear rule describing prospective monetary feedback. Optimal monetary policy is fully characterized in terms of an alternative set of parameter restrictions. Optimal monetary feedback completely stabilizes deviations in commodity output by eliminating the influence of those current innovations about which agents cannot directly observe from the rational expectations of agents. [311]     

Rational expectations and the instability of bond-financing

Models involving the government budget constraint are generally unstable when deficits are bond-financed; while rational expectations models involve restrictions which preclude unstable solutions. This note integrates these approaches and shows that rational expectations is inconsistent with convergence when deficits are bond-financed.     

The gains and losses to predicting nominal income by disaggregating via the new classical aggregate supply and rational expectations hypotheses

In this paper we compaia the predictive power of two types of model of nominal income: one based on a simple single equation aggregate framework; the second disaggregated into price level and output components. The source of the decomposition of nominal income of the type of model that is considered here are the twin hypotheses of rational expectations and structural neutrality. The model chosen as being representative of this approach to macroeconomic model building and against which some single equation models are compared isBarro's [1978] model of the price level and output in the U.S.     

Expectations and the theory of macroeconomic policy: Some recent developments

This paper reviews recent developments in the theory of stabilization policies since the rational expectations revolution. The debate about the neutrality proposition is omitted, and attention is directed at the policy evaluation and the time-inconsistency propositions. It is argued that the open-loop rule of the Friedman type is justifiable only with neutrality, since the techniques of policy evaluation can take into account the restrictions implied by rational expectations. The game-theoretic analyzes by Robert Barro and Donald Gordon support the idea of rules rather than discretion in a novel way, but it is shown that a different reputation mechanism can lead to the “ideal” outcome which is not an equilibrium in the Barro-Gordon analysis.     

The neutrality of systematic monetary policy in models with a disequilibrium price level

A condition is offered which is necessary and sufficient for the neutrality of aggregate output and the real rate of interest with respect to systematic monetary policy in a general class of stochastic macroeconomic models with rational expectations, additive disturbances, lagged information and a disequilibrium price sequence.     

Optimal stabilization policies under rational expectations

Within the framework of a general linear simultaneous model, this paper investigates quadratic-welfare maximizing optimal stabilization policies for four kinds of rational expectations, present and future with the most recent and lagged information sets. When only present expectations enter the model, optimal stabilization policies preserving stepwise consistency are easily formulated through dynamic programming. The existence of future expectations, on the other hand, requires a one-step solution with sequential consistency. A unique optimal policy sequence satisfying this requirement is derived without imposing covariance stationarity on the system.     

ANTICIPATED UTILITY AND RATIONAL EXPECTATIONS AS APPROXIMATIONS OF BAYESIAN DECISION MAKING*

We study a Markov decision problem with unknown transition probabilities. We compute the exact Bayesian decision rule and compare it with two approximations. The first is an infinite‐history, rational‐expectations approximation that assumes that the decision maker knows the transition probabilities. The second is a version of Kreps' anticipated‐utility model in which decision makers update using Bayes' law but optimize in a way that is myopic with respect to their updating of probabilities. For several consumption‐smoothing examples, the anticipated‐utility approximation outperforms the rational expectations approximation. The rational expectations approximation misrepresents the market price of risk.     

The formation of wage expectations in the effort and quit decisions of workers

This study develops models in which workers form expectations of average wages in choosing levels of effort and on-the-job search. It is assumed that information on lagged average wages is available at a low fixed cost, whilst acquiring other information requires an additional variable cost. Under reasonable conditions, workers' expectations are at least partly adaptive, and may be a mixture of rational and adaptive expectations. Microeconomic parameters determine the degree to which expectations are adaptive and the weights placed on various lags of wages. As a result of partly adaptive expectations, nominal demand shocks may have real effects.     

Rational expectations in the overlapping generations model

This paper reports results on the character of the rational expectations equilibria of a stochastic overlapping generations model with heterogenous markets. The model considered is a stationary overlapping generations model in which the endowments of young agents are subject to i.i.d. random shocks. The main result shown is that if there are l > 1 commodities traded in every period, then for most preferences, the rational expectations equilibrium stochastic process of prices and allocations necessarily exhibits serial correlation. This is in marked contrast to the one commodity model in which there always exists an equilibrium which is measure isomorphic to the endowment process.     

The influence of lagged unanticipated money on real variables: A simple illustrative model

The paper extends a simple rational expectations model to allow for the possibility that relative demand shocks are serially correlated, and some suppliers face decision lags so that they must decide what quantity of output to produce some time before they actually produce it. The model implies that current and lagged monetary shocks can have real output effects, and that the coefficients linking output to current and past monetary shocks can exhibit a variety of patterns. I would like to thank C.L.F. Attfield, D. Demery and J. Haskell for their helpful comments, and two anonymous referees for their suggestions on an earlier draft. I am responsible for any errors that remain.     

Inflationary expectations and monetary policy: evidence from Bangladesh

This article first estimates inflationary expectations using a Blanchard–Quah VAR model by decomposing the nominal interest rate into expected inflation and the ex ante real interest rate. Then I utilize this expected inflation along with other macroeconomic variables as inputs to the monetary policy function in a recursive VAR model to identify exogenous policy shocks. To calculate inflationary expectations, I assume that ex ante real interest rate shocks do not have a long-run effect on the nominal interest rate. This article finds that the public expects lower inflation for the future during periods of high inflation. Estimated results from the recursive VAR suggest that a contractionary policy shock increases the real interest rate, appreciates domestic currency, and lowers inflationary expectations and industrial output. However, I find a lagged policy response from Bangladesh Bank to higher inflationary expectations.     

The necessity of delaying economic adjustment

I give an explanation for why agents react with a delay to decision and expectation parameters, by showing that imperfect agents must adjust very slowly relative to optimally adjusting agents if they begin reacting as soon as the latter agents would react. The results follow from the hypothesis of imperfect choice alone irrespective of whether there are any information, search, transaction, or other costs of adjusting decisions. The results thereby provide a general reason for observing inertially lagged behavior, and also agree with recent asset market experiments whose dynamics are governed by adaptive rather than ‘rational’ expectations.     

Robust control and central banking behaviour

This paper seeks to explain the recent behaviour of the two main central banks in the recent financial crisis, applying a robust control tool through a Neo-Keynesian monetary policy model. The direct forbearer of this paper is the Giordani and Söderlind (2004) study. It begins with the origin, purpose and theoretical grounds of robust control, indicating that it is one way to face model uncertainty, as an alternative to the Bayesian approach. In the middle section, we seek to obtain the course of the model's main variables: interest rates, inflation and output. The model constructor also wants the participating agents to have the same doubts that he has regarding its validity; therefore, robust control is considered as a “fine-tuning” of the rational expectations approach. The impulse-response functions are obtained, with the monetary authority acting as a Stackelberg-type leader, affected by a perturbation on the supply side. The two relevant equilibria are obtained and compared in robust control with dynamic economy (the reference equilibrium and the worst possible case equilibrium) with that obtained when operating with rational expectations. The alternative course for the reference model set forth in the paper by Dennis (2008) is also analysed. We mainly find that the different results depend on the behaviour of the law of motion of the state variables, specifically the shadow prices that influence the private sector's expectations. Lastly, the paper relates the recent monetary policy performance when facing the financial crisis that began in the summer of 2007.     

Rational Expectations and the Defris-Williams Inflationary Expectations Series*

This paper evaluates the Defris-Williams inflationary expectations series as a measure of rational expectations for the period 1973(1) to 1980(2). The results show that the series violates the rationality criterion, being an inefficient and biased predictor of inflation. By constructing an ‘information-augmented’ D-W series, the quantitative importance of omitted information available to consumers at the time of making their forecasts is isolated. The key omitted economic variables are found to be lagged monetary growth and unemployment or an indexation dummy which explains 70 percent of the forecast error of the D-W series. These results suggest that a theoretically constructed expectations series may prove to be a superior measure of market expectations of inflation in Australia.     

The Accuracy of OECD Forecasts for Japan

A variety of accuracy measures, error diagnostics and rationality tests are applied to the OECD's macroeconomic forecasts for Japan of aggregate demand and output, inflation and the balance of payments. It is found that the OECD forecasts are superior to naive no-change predictions and forecasts generated by simple autoregressive time-series models. Most forecasting error is nonsystematic. As predictors of direction the OECD's six-month ahead forecasts should be considered valuable; this cannot be said for forecasts which look ahead a year and 18 months. Many forecasts fail bias, efficiency and consistency tests so that the rational expectations hypothesis is not generally supported.