Durbin (1970) pre-tests of Ramsey optimal policy versus time-consistent policy rejects time-consistent policy and optimal simple rule for the U.S. Fed during 1960 to 2006, assuming the reference new-Keynesian Phillips curve transmission mechanism with auto-correlated cost-push shock, including...

A pre-test of Ramsey optimal policy versus time-consistent policy rejects time-consistent policy and (optimal) simple rule for the U.S. Fed during 1960 to 2006, assuming the reference new-Keynesian Phillips curve transmission mechanism with auto-correlated cost-push shock. The number of reduced...

This paper offers an alternative explanation for the behavior of postwar US inflation by measuring a novel source of monetary policy time-inconsistency due to Cukierman (2002). In the presence of asymmetric preferences, the monetary authorities end up generating a systematic inflation bias...

This paper offers an alternative explanation for the behavior of postwar US inflation by measuring a novel source of monetary policy time-inconsistency due to Cukierman (2002). In the presence of asymmetric preferences, the monetary authorities end up generating a systematic inflation bias...

With non-controllable auto-regressive shocks, the welfare of Ramsey optimal policy is the solution of a single Riccati equation of a linear quadratic regulator. The existing theory by Hansen and Sargent (2007) refers to an additional Sylvester equation but miss another equation for computing the...

Discretionary policymakers cannot manage private-sector expectations and cannot coordinate the actions of future policymakers. As a consequence, expectations traps and coordination failures can occur and multiple equilibria can arise. To utilize the explanatory power of models with multiple...

This paper studies the design of optimal time-consistent monetary policy in an economy where the planner trusts its own model, while a representative household uses a set of alternative probability distributions governing the evolution of the exogenous state of the economy. In such environments,...

The case for central bank independence is built on an intellectual two-step. Step one argues there is a problem of inflation prone government. Step two argues independence is the solution to that problem. This paper challenges that case and shows it is based on false politics and economics. The...

We give a set of sufficient conditions for uniqueness of a time-consistent Markov stationary consumption policy for a quasi-hyperbolic household under uncertainty. To the best of our knowledge, this uniqueness result is the first presented in the literature for general settings, i.e. under...

The commitment ability of governments is neither infinite nor zero but intermediate. In this paper, we determine the commitment ability that a government needs to implement a unique equilibrium outcome and rule out self-fulfilling expectations. We show that, in a large class of static...