Inflation Scares and Forecast-Based Monetary Policy

38 Pages Posted: 1 Jan 2004

See all articles by Athanasios Orphanides

Athanasios Orphanides

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management; Asia School of Business

John C. Williams

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 2003

Abstract

Central banks pay close attention to inflation expectations. In standard models, however, inflation expectations are tied down by the assumption of rational expectations and should be of little independent interest to policy makers. In this paper, we relax the assumption of rational expectations with perfect knowledge and reexamine the role of inflation expectations in the economy and in the conduct of monetary policy. Agents are assumed to have imperfect knowledge of the precise structure of the economy and the policymakers' preferences. Expectations are governed by a perpetual learning technology. With learning, disturbances can give rise to endogenous inflation scares, that is, significant and persistent deviations of inflation expectations from those implied by rational expectations. The presence of learning increases the sensitivity of inflation expectations and the term structure of interest rates to economic shocks, in line with the empirical evidence. We also explore the role of private inflation expectations for the conduct of efficient monetary policy. Under rational expectations, inflation expectations equal a linear combination of macroeconomic variables and as such provide no additional information to the policy maker. In contrast, under learning, private inflation expectations follow a time-varying process and provide useful information for the conduct of monetary policy.

Keywords: Inflation forecasts, policy rules, rational expectations, learning

JEL Classification: E52

Suggested Citation

Orphanides, Athanasios and Williams, John C., Inflation Scares and Forecast-Based Monetary Policy (July 2003). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=445480 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.445480

Athanasios Orphanides (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

100 Main Street
E62-416
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

HOME PAGE: http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_spseqno=54058

Asia School of Business ( email )

Jalan Kuching, Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan K
Kuala Lumpur, MA
Malaysia

John C. Williams

Federal Reserve Bank of New York ( email )

33 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10045
United States

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