Monetary Policy According to HANK
66 Pages Posted: 12 May 2016
There are 2 versions of this paper
Monetary Policy According to HANK
Monetary Policy According to Hank
Date Written: May 11, 2016
Abstract
We revisit the transmission mechanism of monetary policy for household consumption in a Heterogeneous Agent New Keynesian (HANK) model. The model yields empirically realistic distributions of household wealth and marginal propensities to consume because of two key features: multiple assets with different degrees of liquidity and an idiosyncratic income process with leptokurtic income changes. In this environment, the indirect effects of an unexpected cut in interest rates, which operate through a general equilibrium increase in labor demand, far outweigh direct effects such as intertemporal substitution. This finding is in stark contrast to small- and medium-scale Representative Agent New Keynesian (RANK) economies, where intertemporal substitution drives virtually all of the transmission from interest rates to consumption.
Keywords: Monetary Policy, Heterogeneous Agents, New Keynesian, Consumption, Liquidity, Inequality, Earnings Kurtosis
JEL Classification: D14, D31, E21, E52
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation