Search Results
Working Paper
Consumers' Attitudes and Their Inflation Expectations
This paper studies consumers' inflation expectations using micro-level data from the Surveys of Consumers conducted by University of Michigan. It shows that beyond the well-established socio-economic factors such as income, age or gender, other characteristics such as the households' financial situation and their purchasing attitudes are important determinants of their forecast accuracy. Respondents with current or expected financial difficulties, pessimistic attitudes about major purchases, or expectations that income will go down in the future have a stronger upward bias in their ...
Working Paper
Households' Preferences Over Inflation and Monetary Policy Tradeoffs
We document novel facts about U.S. household preferences over inflation and monetary policy. Many households are highly attentive to news about monetary policy and to interest rates. The median household perceives the Federal Reserve's inflation target to be three percent, but would prefer it to be lower. Quantifying the tradeoff between inflation and unemployment, we find an average acceptable sacrifice ratio of 0.6, implying that households are likely to find disinflation costly. Average preferences are well represented by a non-linear loss function with near equal weights on inflation and ...
Working Paper
Endogenous Labor Supply in an Estimated New-Keynesian Model: Nominal versus Real Rigidities
Standard macroeconomic models find it difficult to reconcile slow recoveries and missing disinflations after deep deteriorations in the labor market. We develop and estimate a New-Keynesian model with search and matching frictions in the labor market, endogenous intensive and extensive labor supply decisions, and financial frictions. We conclude that the estimated combination of a low degree of nominal wage rigidities and a high degree of real wage rigidities, together with a small role for pre-match costs relative to post-match costs, is key in successfully forecasting slow recoveries in ...
Working Paper
The Hidden Heterogeneity of Inflation Expectations and its Implications
Using a new consumer survey dataset, we document a new dimension of heterogeneity in inflation expectations that has implications for consumption and saving decisions as well as monetary policy transmission. We show that German households with the same inflation expectations differently assess whether the level of expected inflation and of nominal interest rates is appropriate or too high/too low. The `hidden heterogeneity' in expectations stemming from these opinions is related to demographic characteristics and affects current and planned spending in addition to the Euler equation effect of ...
Working Paper
Duration Dependence, Monetary Policy Asymmetries, and the Business Cycle
We produce business cycle chronologies for U.S. states and evaluate the factors that change the probability of moving from one phase to another. We find strong evidence for positive duration dependence in all business cycle phases but find that the effect is modest relative to other state- and national-level factors. Monetary policy shocks also have a strong influence on the transition probabilities in a highly asymmetric way. The effect of policy shocks depends on the current state of the cycle as well as the sign and size of the shock.
Working Paper
When is the Fiscal Multiplier High? A Comparison of Four Business Cycle Phases
We synthesize the recent, at times conflicting, empirical literature regarding whether fiscal policy is more effective during certain points in the business cycle. Evidence of state dependence in the multiplier depends critically on how the business cycle is defined. Estimates of the fiscal multiplier do not change when the unemployment rate is above or below its trend. However, we find that the multiplier is higher when the unemployment rate is increasing relative to when it is decreasing. This result holds using both a long time-series at the U.S. national level and for a panel of U.S. ...
Working Paper
Pricing decisions in an experimental dynamic stochastic general equilibrium economy
We construct experimental economies, populated with human subjects, with a structure based on a nonlinear version of the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model. We analyze the behavior of firms' pricing decisions in four different experimental economies. We consider how well the experimental data conform to a number of accepted empirical stylized facts. Pricing patterns mostly conform to these patterns. Most price changes are positive, and inflation is strongly correlated with average magnitude, but not the frequency, of price changes. Prices are affected negatively ...
Working Paper
Inflation and Deflationary Biases in Inflation Expectations
We explore the consequences of losing confidence in the price-stability objective of central banks by quantifying the inflation and deflationary biases in inflation expectations. In a model with an occasionally binding zero-lower-bound constraint, we show that an inflation bias as well as a deflationary bias exist as a steady-state outcome. We assess the predictions of this model using unique individual-level inflation expectations data across nine countries that allow for a direct identification of these biases. Both inflation and deflationary biases are present (and sizable) in inflation ...