This paper revisits the accuracy of inflation forecasting using activity and expectations variables. We apply Bayesian model averaging across different regression specifications selected from a set of potential predictors that includes lagged values of inflation, a host of real activity data,...

The New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) asserts that inflation depends on expectations of real marginal costs, but empirical research has shown that purely forward-looking versions of the model generate too little inflation persistence. In this paper, we offer a resolution of the persistence...

We construct a price index with weights for the prices of different PCE (personal consumption expenditures) goods chosen to minimize the welfare costs of nominal distortions. In this cost-of-nominal-distortions index (CONDI), the weights are computed in a multi-sector New Keynesian model with...

The real effects of an imperfectly credible disinflation depend critically on the extent of price rigidity. In this paper, we examine how credibility affects the outcome of a disinflation in a model with endogenous time-dependent pricing rules. Both the endogenous initial degree of price...

We develop a multi-sector sticky-price DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) model that can endogenously deliver differential responses of prices to aggregate and sectoral shocks. Input-output production linkages induce across-sector pricing complementarities that contribute to a slow...

We study the implications of increased price flexibility on aggregate output volatility in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. First, using a simplified version of the model, we show analytically that the results depend on the shocks driving the economy and the systematic...

We characterize optimal state-dependent pricing rules under various forms of infrequent information. In all models, infrequent price changes arise from the existence of a lump-sum “menu cost.” We entertain various alternatives for the source and nature of infrequent information. In two...

This paper analyzes the potential effect of global market competition on inflation dynamics. It does so through the lens of the Calvo model of staggered price setting, which implies that inflation depends on expected future inflation and a measure of marginal costs. I modify the assumption of a...

Using the panel component of the Michigan Survey of Consumers, we show that individuals, in particular women and ethnic minorities, are highly heterogeneous in their expectations of inflation. We estimate a model of inflation expectations based on learning from experience that also allows for...

We provide a tractable model to study monetary policy under discretion. We restrict our analysis to Markov equilibria. We find that for all parametrizations with an equilibrium inflation rate of about 2 percent, there is a second equilibrium with an inflation rate just above 10 percent. Thus,...